More than 230 middle school students in Pflugerville ISD submitted essays for the recent SouthWest Water Company writing contest.
Thank you to all students who entered and to the teachers who scored the contest.
SouthWest Water congratulates the contest finalists:
Nicholas Whitely, Dessau Middle School
Nicholas Gray-Ramos, Westview Middle School
Ashley Brook Duncan, Park Crest Middle School
Emma Martinez, Pflugerville Middle School
And the grand-prize winner:
Paige Holtzendorf, Kelly Lane Middle School
Grand Prize-Winning Essay
“We Can’t Live Without It”
By: Paige Holtzendorf
About seventy percent of the average human body is made up of it. It covers nearly three quarters of the Earth’s surface. Yet seven hundred eighty million people, almost two and a half times the American population, don’t have it readily available. What is this valuable resource? Water! To most of us, water seems like one of the most simple and basic things in life, but it is a lot more complex than you might think. This vital substance helps us nourish our crops, breathe, and live a healthy life. Without it, we could not eat, we could not breathe, and we would not survive. There is no other element on our planet as valuable to our survival as water.
First of all, water helps us grow crops. Crops provide us with the fruits, vegetables, and grains that are necessary for nutrition and human life. But perhaps you’re thinking, “I don’t even like vegetables!” Farming also provides us with more than just a food source. For many families all over the world, farming is their only source of income. Many people depend on farming for survival and without it, would end up homeless and unable to provide for their families.
Water also helps people, and animals, breathe. How? Well, water supports all plant life on Earth, and helps plants to grow healthy and strong. Without water, all plants would die. If all the plants were dead, our source of oxygen would be eliminated, since plants are our main source of oxygen. Therefore, humans are dependent on the oxygen created by plants. This is how water indeed helps people and animals breathe.
In addition to growing crops and creating oxygen for us to breathe, humans, along with other plants and animals, need water to simply live a healthy life. Since the human body is made up of nearly seventy percent water, clean water is a necessity to keep our bodies functioning. Everything our bodies do requires water. At the rate our bodies naturally lose water, we can’t survive more than four to seven days without it. For most of us, a clean water supply is a luxury we don’t often appreciate or even think about much. But for many people all over the world, getting clean water is not as easy as just pouring a glass from the kitchen sink, or picking up a plastic water bottle from the store. In fact, you might be surprised to know that more than 3.4 million people die each year because they don’t have clean water readily available, and therefore don’t have any water to drink. Water is the single most important nutrient for human life.
In the United States, we are fortunate to have a generous supply of clean water to ensure our survival. Our farmers value the water sources that nourish their crops. Our plants and animals are able to flourish because clean water is readily available to them. And for our people, water is readily available and easy to obtain from any water fountain, garden hose, kitchen sink, or grocery store. However, some parts of the world are not as fortunate as we are when it comes to water. Therefore, each of us has a responsibility to value, conserve, and protect our water supply. It’s literally a gift we cannot live without!
