Topical Tuesdays: Too Clean? - KS2 News Story and Reading and Writing Activity Sheet from The Week Junior

The Government has promised to introduce tougher action against water companies that dump raw sewage (untreated waste) into England’s rivers and seas. This resources pack includes an article from The Week Junior magazine, along with a sheet of activities designed to get children thinking, talking and writing about what the story means to them.

Debate

Are humans becoming too clean? Surely, it can’t be good for the environment and there is even the suggestion that our immune systems – our natural defences against disease – are becoming weaker. Why not wait until someone becomes ill and treat that rather than trying to disinfect our entire world? Or do you think that cleanliness is an important reflection of the progress humans have made as a species? In any case, isn’t letting people get very ill a risky way to deal with the filth we create, even if we have learnt how to cure most diseases? What do you think?

Writing challenges

Rewrite the famous poem The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear as if they were sailing their pea-green boat on a sea that had been polluted by raw sewage.

Or

Write a short narrative extract about a visit to the seaside. Use it as an exercise in reflecting a change of mood from the happiness and excitement of going to the beach to the disgust at finding that the sea was heavily polluted with sewage.

Investigate

Research what happens to our waste when we flush the toilet, describing what happens at each stage. Try to organise your writing sensibly, perhaps as a series of numbered steps or even as a flow diagram.

Find the entire series of Topical Tuesday resources to download here.

What is The Week Junior?

The Week Junior magazine looks at current affairs and helps children make sense of the world, provides context and clarity to complex issues, improves general knowledge and encourages discussion and debate.

To find out more about The Week Junior and to download its free resources, please go to https://schools.theweekjunior.co.uk. 

This resource is part of the News Activities Archive collection.
View more from this collection

• News story
• Activities sheet