At my first school just outside London UK, we learnt about the ‘Water Cycle’ with great speed. At the first sign of rain our science mistress marched us out into the playground to marvel at the grey clouds and experience some of their content. Following this, we would march back into the classroom with whatever rain we had managed not to avoid only to marvel at how slow water evaporates when the school heating boiler’s out of action.
Anyone missing the point after the first downpour would be told to catch a few thousand more raindrops on the next rainy day so they could enjoy the learning experience all over again. It took only a few Spring showers before the whole class achieved top marks on all questions of water circulation.
However in Russia, a country that surely has water in all its forms available on every school day in each year, a pig and a dog do the trick of turning young minds into water-wise citizens. Here, in a script for a children’s show on Russian TV, young seekers of water wisdom are able to watch as the hot breath of a talking pig melts ice pieces then with the help of a plant, raises the melted result into the sky to make clouds.
(TV Script by kind permission of Natasha Panina, Moscow, Russia)
THE PIG SITING AT THE TABLE.
THE PLATE WITH THE PIECES OF THE ICE INFRONT OF IT.
NEAR THE PIG, THE POT WITH THE SOIL.
THE PIG – Now! Will see!
(THE DOG COMES TO THE ROOM)
THE DOG – Hello the Pig! What are you doing?
THE PIG – Hello the Dog! This is the experiment!
THE DOG – Oh! It’s interesting! That’s kind of the experiment?
THE PIG – Do you see the ice?
THE DOG – Yes, I see.
THE PIG – I am breathing on it. Understand?
THE DOG – No, I am not. Why you are breathing on it?
THE PIG – This is the experiment!
THE DOG – Can I breathing with you?
THE PIG – Yes, sure! Together will be the better!
(THE DOLLS ARE BREATHING ON THE ICE TOGETHER)
THE DOG – But why we are breathing?
THE PIG – Look at this!
(THERE ARE A WATER IN THE PLATE WITH THE ICE)
THE PIG – Do you see? The ice transforms to the water!
THE DOG – Yes, really!
(THE HOST IS COMING)
THE HOST – Good evening!
THE PIG – Hello!
THE DOG – Good evening!
THE HOST – What are you doing?
THE PIG – The experiment!
THE HOST – What for?
THE PIG – I had wet feet yesterday.
THE DOG – Me too!
THE PIG – The water around us! I wanted to know where is the water from!
THE HOST – So, do you understand now?
THE PIG – No.
THE DOG – I understand! We are breathing and the ice transforms in to the
water because we have warm breathing!
THE HOST – Yes, right!
(THE HOST TAKES THE ICE AND THE WATER BAG IN TO DROP FROM HER HAND)
THE HOST – The ice in the street transforms in the water because there is a
spring now and more warm!
THE DOG – But where the water put in?
(THE HOST TAKE THE WATER AND PUT IN THE POT WITH THE SOIL)
THE HOST – The part of the water put in the soil and gives the birth to new
plants.
(THE HOST TAKE THE PLANT AND PUT IN THE SOIL)
THE HOST – Another part of the water are evaporation!
THE DOG – Where the water are evaporation?
THE HOST – The water with the little drops is up to the sky where it
transforms in the cloud. And after it the water back to the soul with the
rain!
(THE HOST TAKE THE WATERING CAN AND WET TO THE SOIL)
THE PIG – But what’s about the snow?
THE DOG – I know! The snow is the frost rain!
THE HOST – Right! When we have minus temperature the water transforms to the
snow!
THE PIG – It means what the water doesn’t disappear! At first it’s the rain,
then the evaporation and after this is the rain again!
THE HOST – Right! We call this the water circulation!
THE DOG – It’s so good! Let’s bring the plate with the water to the street!
Let it evaporations to the rain!
THE PIG – Yes! What we are not lose the water!
THE HOST – Yes! And now it’s time to sleep! Good night girls and boys!
THE PIG – Have a good dream!
THE DOG – See you tomorrow!
CLICK HERE to read in Russian
PS. If you have any interesting or amusing ways of putting across all or some of the Water Cycle, please send them in to World of Water.
