Water Flashcards
Boiling Water
To kill all the germs, boil water for ten minutes, let it cool, then drink it. This can take a surprising amount of fuel.
Purifying Tablets
How to Use: ???
Note: The water might taste like a swimming pool.
It’s not a good idea to drink this water all the time, but if it’s all you have, drink up.
Collecting Water from Plants: Plastic Bag Method
Tie a plastic bag around a living plant. As the plant “breathes”, clean water that you can drink will collect inside the plastic bag, but it takes a long time.
Birch and Maple Sap
When its cold at night, but warm during the day Birch and Maple Trees are full of sap that you can drink.
Remove the bark if needed. Cut a “V” in the side of the tree. At the bottom of the “V”, drill out a little hole. Put a small stick (about one or two inches) in the hole. When the sap is running, it will drip off this stick.
Can you put a container under the stick to catch the drips?
Vine Sap
When you cut a hanging vine, sometimes it’s sap drips out. You can drink it straight from the vine or put a container underneath to catch the drips.
This sap won’t hurt you, but if you drink too much it could give you a stomach ache—maybe eating a tums or a tiny bit of charcoal will help soothe your stomach.
Distillation
This is a way to collect pure drinking water. There are a number of ways to do it, but essentially, you have an area with dirty water, which evaporates in the sun. As it evaporates it collects in another area.
Dew
Put a sheet of plastic on the ground at night to collect dew for you to drink in the morning.
You can also try setting out a piece of fabric. When it’s wet with dew in the morning you can squeeze out the moisture by twisting it.
This water is good to drink.
Water Drinking Safety
Don’t drink water in the wild unless you’ve purified it!
Solar Purification
Set a clear plastic bag of water in the sun for several hours. This will purify the water better than nothing.
Eating snow
Don’t eat snow—it will lower your body temperature. Melt it instead.
