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Some children spinning on merry-gorounds are working hard while having fun at recess. Sound crazy? A cool new invention depends on kid power to pump fresh, clean water.

In the South African countryside, women and children can spend four hours a day fetching water from distant rivers then carrying it all the way back home. Even if there's a well nearby, pumping water by hand is hard, slow work. Electric pumps are expensive to install and difficult to fix.

To make getting water easier for everyone, South African inventors found a cheap yet fun solution: the Play-Pump. As children turn a merry-go-round (called a roundabout in South Africa), they power a pump that brings water up from a well into a large storage tank above the ground. Then they simply turn a tap to fill their buckets with fresh, clean water. At full strength, the pump can produce 370 gallons of water per hour.

So far, more than 400 pumps in schoolyards and neighborhoods across the country provide water for 200,000 people. And kids don't have to spend long hours fetching water, so there's more time for school-and recess.

-Meredith Polley

Copyright Carus Publishing Company Jul/Aug 2005
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