Back at home, it’s easy to think that when you turn on a tap, water will come out. Here at The Island School, however, we have learned that water is not an unlimited resource. In fact, our water supply is contained within five underground cisterns on our campus. The water that fills our cisterns comes from the sky, and roofs across campus collect this water, which then flows directly into the cisterns. We draw water from one cistern at a time for drinking, cooking, showering, and various other purposes. Each morning during chores, the Cistern Crew is responsible for measuring the level of water in each of the five cisterns, and entering the data into an Excel spreadsheet. This data is then examined to determine how much water we have used up and how much is left. The problem is that, currently, there is no real system behind deciding which cistern we draw water from. Over the past few weeks in math class, we have been figuring out a solution to this problem.

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