Run a quiz
People love a good quiz, and they’re easy to organise.You could raise some money by selling tickets or holding a raffle. People are bound to have a great night! As ever, don’t forget to ask people for their details – we need friends!
We’ve worked up 20 questions, enough for two rounds, and they’re all about water. Simply download the questions and answers and take them with you to your event. Here are the questions we have come up with:
1. How much water on Earth is fresh to the nearest 1%?
2. Is there more fresh water under the ground or above the ground?
3. The World Health Organisation says that everyone should have access to 20 litres of fresh water a day within 1km of where they live, but how many people don’t have this? Is it 2% of the world’s people, 8% of the world’s people, or 15% of the world’s people?
4. Lots of water for everyday use like cooking, cleaning and small-scale agriculture has to be physically carried by people. But how many hours a year are spent carrying water?
5. What proportion of the world’s people lack access to adequate sanitation facilities? Is it 15% of the world’s people, 25% of the world’s people, or 37% of the world’s people?
6. How many lives are lost to unsafe or inadequate water every year? Is it as many as live in Birmingham (1 million), Leeds (700,000) or Birmingham and Leeds together?
7. How much of the water existing today existed when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth?
8. Since 1950 the number of people in the world has doubled but by how much has water use increased?
9. People use very different amounts of water for eating, drinking and washing, as well as ‘locked in’ water – the water that is used to produce the things we buy. How much more water can someone in the developed world consume in these ways than someone in the developing world? 20 times? 50 times? 70 times?
10. Water scarcity, lack of access to water, is a big problem for the 80% of poor people who rely on small-scale farming (less than about 2 football pitches’ worth of land) for their food and livelihoods. And small-scale farming feeds how many of the world’s population? A fifth, a quarter or a third?
11. How many people live in areas facing water scarcity to the nearest 100 million? (water scarcity is due to physical scarcity – there’s not enough; and economic scarcity – there’s enough, but it’s not getting to the people who need it)
12. There are lots of reasons for areas becoming water scarce. How many reasons can you name? A point for each general area.
13. The largest lake on Earth by volume is Lake Baikal. But where is it?
14. What’s the pH of pure water?
15. How many tonnes of water does the sun evaporate each day? A hundred million, a hundred billion or a trillion?
16. Where in the world is the hottest sea water and (for a bonus point) how hot is it to the nearest 5°C?
17. Which animal can last the longest without water, a rat or a camel?
18. How many baths full of water do you need to produce a single cup of coffee?
19. How many baths full of water do you need to produce one hamburger?
20. What is the lowest temperature water will boil at on the Earth’s surface? (to the nearest 5 degrees)
Click here to find out about other ways you can share the secret of Progressio!
Download everything you need here:
Event poster
Two-minute talk
Quiz questions and answers
Sign-up sheet
To request donation envelopes for your event click here
Photograph: Progressio supporters take part in a quiz at the Have your Say event in London. Photo ©Layton Thompson/Progressio
