First, Georgia lawmakers proposed a brazen land grab to claim a sliver of the Tennessee River for the parched peach state.

Then, last week, Chattanooga city officials offered folks in Atlanta a symbolic wet kiss in the form of a pickup truck full of bottled water.

Boys. Boys.

You could call these childish moves, but that would be inconsiderate to children.

I sat down with two eighth-graders last week who understand that access to water is no joking matter in the 21st century.

Kaycee Ensign, 13, and Annie Paden, 14, attend Girls Preparatory School, where they are part of the campus chapter of Amnesty International, the worldwide human-rights group. As a service project, the girls are focusing on the crucial need for clean water in the developing world.

They worry about kids in other countries who are ashamed to go to school because they have no clean bath water. Or, worse, the thousands of children who die each week worldwide because of foul, disease-ridden streams and rivers.

The girls are recruiting Chattanooga restaurants to participate in the Tap Project, a clean water campaign sponsored by UNICEF, the world relief agency.

During World Water Week March 16-22, customers at participating local restaurants can donate $1 each to help UNICEF provide access to clean drinking water to children around the world.

The United Nations estimates the about 1.2 billion people in the world lack adequate clean water.

Each person in the United States uses about 203 gallons of water a day, while the average in undeveloped countries is closer to 5 gallons — about equal to one toilet flush — the United Nations estimates.

“We don’t even think about the fact that there are people without water,” Kaycee said.

“The other day I was filling up all of my dog’s bowls with clean water, and I thought, ‘Whoa, our pets even have clean water,’” Annie said.

The girls have bravely scheduled meetings with local restaurant owners to recruit them for participating in Project Tap.

“For $1, they (UNICEF) can supply 40 days of clean water to a child,” said Kaycee.

To educate their GPS classmates on the world water crisis, the two girls hung hundreds of recycled water bottles from poles on the private school campus.

They set a goal of recruiting five restaurants for Project Tap, an objective they quickly met.

Local restaurants participating in the Tap Project include Lupi’s Pizza Pies (locations at 1414 Jenkins Rd. and 406 Broad St.), 212 Market (212 Market St.), Pisa Pizza (551 River St.), Jet Stream Grill (417 Frazier Ave.), Sushi Nabe (110 River St.) and Las Margaritas (1101 Hixson Pike).

Now, if we could just get groups of kids together from Tennessee and Georgia, I’ll bet they could work this whole water thing out without insult or injury.