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Our Right to Safe and Healthy Water (Ages 12-14)

Our Right to Safe and Healthy Water (Ages 12-14)

This playlist focuses on the state of the environment—specifically our water supply—and highlights issues of conservation and sustainability.

Films in This Playlist Include
Crapshoot: The Gamble with our Wastes
Toxic Trespasses
Waterlife
The Water Bearer
Pukaskwa National Park
Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie

  • Crapshoot: The Gamble with Our Wastes
    campus 2003 | 52 min

    A hazardous mix of waste is flushed into the sewer every day. The billions of litres of water - combined with unknown quantities of chemicals, solvents, heavy metals, human waste and food - where does it all go? And what does it do to us? Filmed in Italy, India, Sweden, the United States and Canada, this bold documentary questions our fundamental attitudes to waste. Does our need to dispose of waste take precedence over public safety? What are the alternatives?

  • Toxic Trespass
    2007|52 min

    This feature documentary is an investigation into the effects of the chemicals we are all exposed to in our daily lives. The film begins with the filmmaker Barri Cohen’s own 10-year-old daughter, whose blood carries carcinogens like benzene and the long-banned DDT. Then, it heads out to Windsor and Sarnia: Canadian toxic hotspots, with startling clusters of deadly diseases. The film presents passionate activists working for positive change, along with doctors and scientists who see evidence of links between environmental pollution and health problems. Carried by Cohen's passion for truth and her disarming openness, this moving documentary is essential viewing for anyone concerned about the effects of pollutants on our - and our children's - very DNA.

    Toxic Trespass is accompanied by a comprehensive guidebook for educators, activists and concerned citizens, produced by the Women's Healthy Environment Network.

  • Waterlife
    2009|1 h 49 min

    Waterlife is a documentary film about the Great Lakes that follows the flow of the lakes' water from the Nipigon River to the Atlantic Ocean. The film's goal is to take viewers on a tour of an incredibly beautiful ecosystem that is facing complex challenges.


  • The Water Bearer
    2007|52 min

    The quest for fresh water leads Indonesians of Catholic and Muslim faiths to work together, along with Quebecer Gilles Raymond, to establish direct democracy. A road movie in which solidarity overcomes defeatism, and generosity wins over corruption.

  • Pukaskwa National Park
    1983|17 min

    This short documentary by Bill Mason explores Pukaskwa National Park on Lake Superior, providing a background of the park's geological past and plant life. The film also shows scenes of hiking, canoeing and camping. The result is to put us back in touch with the natural elements that our ancestors both fought and enjoyed.

  • Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie
    campus 2010 | 1 h 32 min

    This feature documentary profiles the life and work of world-renowned Canadian scientist, educator, broadcaster and activist David Suzuki on the occasion of his last lecture in 2009—a lecture he describes as “a distillation of my life and thoughts, my legacy, what I want to say before I die.” As Suzuki reflects on his family history—including the persecution of Japanese Canadians during WWII—and his discovery of the power and beauty of the natural world, we are spurred to examine our own relationship to nature, scientific knowledge, and sustainability throughout modernity and beyond.