NCERT Solutions for Class 5th The World Around Us Chapter 2 Closing questions — Let us reflect

How to find out: look at the map of your state in an atlas or on a wall map at school, and find the blue lines. Ask your teacher or an elder for the names, and ask which dam supplies water to your town.

(a) What the rivers are used for. Drinking water for towns and villages; irrigation of fields through canals; water for factories; fishing; transport by boat; making electricity at dams; festivals, fairs and holy dips; and ecotourism such as boating and bird watching.

(b) Dams on them. Yes — almost every large Indian river has dams. The chapter itself says more than 900 dams store the Godavari's water alone. A dam stores water for the dry season, supplies canals and towns, makes electricity, and helps hold back some flood water.

Sample answer: “The Godavari and the Manjira flow through my state. Their water is used for drinking in our town, for irrigating paddy fields through canals, for fishing, and for making electricity. Yes, there are dams on them — the Sriram Sagar Project is on the Godavari, and the water in our taps comes from it.”

How to do this well:

1. Sit with a grandparent or an elder and ask: “Is there a story or a festival about our river?” Ask them to tell it slowly.
2. Write down four things: the name of the story or festival, when it happens, what people do, and why the river matters in it.
3. Ask for one small personal memory — “What did you do at this festival when you were my age?” This is the part the class will enjoy most.
4. Prepare a two-minute talk. Draw one picture to hold up. Begin with the story, not with a definition.

River festivals of India you could talk about:

Sample answer: “My grandmother told me about the Godavari Pushkaram. It comes once in twelve years. She said that when she was small, her whole family walked to the ghat before sunrise. The bank was full of lamps and people singing. Her mother told her that the river is like a mother who feeds the fields, so once in twelve years everyone comes to thank her. My grandmother says the water was so clear then that she could see her own feet standing in it. She is sad that it is not so clear now.”

How to do the interview: ask one elder these six questions, and write their exact words in your notebook. Then read both answers side by side.

1. Which river or pond was closest to your home?
2. How did the water look, and could you drink it?
3. What did you use it for?
4. What lived in it — fish, turtles, birds?
5. Did it have water in summer as well?
6. Who threw waste into it, and who cleaned it?

Sample answer: “My grandfather says that when he was ten, the river near our town was clear and cool, and the whole family bathed in it. He caught small fish with a cloth. In the evening, birds sat on the sandbank. Today, he says, three drains fall into the river inside our town itself. The water is grey after the first drain. Plastic gets stuck in the reeds. There are almost no fish left near the town. He says the river did not change by itself — we changed it.”

People built near rivers because a river gave them everything at one place — drinking water, water for crops and animals, fish, rich flat soil, and a road for boats. And yes, rivers are just as important today — but most of us no longer see it, because the water now reaches us through pipes and canals instead of in a pot.

Then — why the river decided where a city grew:

1. Water had to be carried by hand, so people lived within walking distance of it.
2. Crops needed water again and again, and river plains have soft, rich soil.
3. Cattle needed to drink every day.
4. Fish from the river were steady food.
5. There were no roads. Boats carried goods and people, so trade grew where the river was.
6. The river also gave clay for pots, sand for building, and reeds for baskets.

Now — what has changed and what has not:

My one rule: “No drain and no waste may enter the river — every drop of dirty water must be cleaned before it reaches the water, and any waste thrown in must be picked up by the one who threw it.”

Why I chose this rule and not another:

1. The chapter names three things that spoil the river — waste, plastic and dirty water. All three enter through the same door: the drain and the bank.
2. If you shut that one door, the river begins to heal by itself, because a flowing river cleans itself when nothing new is added.
3. It is a rule anybody can check. You do not need a machine — you only need to walk along the bank and look.

How the rule would work in practice:

• Every drain would have to end in a treatment tank or a reed bed, not in the river.
• Bins and a collection point for puja waste at every ghat, and a fine for throwing waste in the water.
• A ‘river monitor’ from every school class, who checks one stretch of the bank each month and reports.
• Factories to show, once a year, that the water they let out is clean.
• A board at the ghat showing whether the water is safe for bathing that week.

Other good rules you could choose instead:

Sample answer: “Last summer I left the tap running while I brushed my teeth, and I did it every morning for weeks. The water just ran into the drain while I stood there with the brush. One day my grandmother put a mug under the tap to show me how much was going away — the mug filled four times in the time I took to brush. What I could have done differently is simple: wet the brush, close the tap, brush, and open the tap only to rinse. Now I use one mug of water and the tap stays shut. My little brother has started doing the same.”

Common ways we waste water — and what to do instead:

Yes. A simple filter is a layered column: cloth on top, then cotton, then fine sand, then coarse sand, then small gravel, then pebbles at the bottom. Dirty water is poured on top and comes out clearer at the bottom.

How to make it:

1. Take an empty plastic bottle and ask an adult to cut off the bottom.
2. Turn the bottle upside down — the cap end faces down. Make a small hole in the cap, or leave the cap off and cover the mouth with a piece of cloth tied on.
3. Stand this upside-down bottle in a glass or a jug.
4. Now put in the layers, in this order, from the bottom (the neck) upwards: small pebbles, then coarse sand, then fine sand, then a thick pad of cotton, and a folded piece of clean cotton cloth on top.
5. First pour clean water through it once, to wash the sand. Throw that water away.
6. Now pour muddy water slowly on the cloth and watch the water that collects below.

My plan for the new city, under the three headings.

(a) To keep the river clean

1. Build the sewage treatment plants first, before the houses. No drain in the city may empty into the river without being cleaned.
2. Put every factory on the downstream side of the city, and make each one clean its own water before letting it out. Test the water every month and put the results on a public board.
3. Provide two bins in every house and street — wet waste and dry waste — and a proper daily collection, so nothing has to be dumped on the bank.
4. Ban plastic bags and single-use plastic in the whole city.
5. Make clean, well-lit ghats with steps, bins and a separate tank for puja flowers and offerings.
6. Leave a wide green belt of trees and grass along both banks. Nothing may be built inside it.
7. Set up a citizens' river committee with two members from every ward and one from every school.

(b) To prevent floods during heavy rains

1. Keep a wide no-building zone on both banks. The river needs room to spread; if we do not give it room, it takes our houses.
2. Never fill up the low ground, the old ponds or the natural nalas — that is where flood water is supposed to go.
3. Make ponds and open parks in the low parts of the city, so they can hold water during heavy rain.
4. Build wide storm-water drains, separate from the sewage drains, and clean them before every monsoon.
5. Use paving blocks with gaps, gardens and open soil instead of covering every surface with cement, so rain can soak in.
6. Plant trees on the slopes upstream — trees slow the rain down and help the soil soak the water up, exactly as the picture on page 32 shows.
7. Set up a warning system, mark evacuation routes, and put the relief centres on high ground.

(c) To ensure there is always enough water, even in summer

1. Make rainwater harvesting compulsory for every building — the roof water goes into a tank, and the extra into a recharge pit.
2. Keep the city's ponds and lakes alive and desilted; they store rain and recharge the groundwater.
3. Repair leaks quickly. In many cities a large part of the water is lost from broken pipes before it ever reaches a house.
4. Recycle used water and use it for gardens, parks and construction, so that clean water is saved for drinking.
5. Fit water meters and teach every family to use water carefully; put water ATMs in public places.
6. Plan a fair share between homes, farms and factories, and let a fixed amount of water always flow down the river itself.
7. Do not draw more groundwater than the rain can put back.