Worldwide Water Education
Educate. Empower. Act. The mission of Project WET is to reach children, parents, educators and communities of the world with water education. We invite you to join us in educating children about the most precious resource on the planet — water.
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Project WET Blog
What Are You Doing This Summer?
Update your skills, upgrade your library and prepare for the Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards with Project WET's Online Refresher Course!
Designed for anyone who has taken a Project WET 1.0 workshop in the past and wants to upgrade to Guide 2.0, the online training includes:
- Self-guided online course that can be completed in about 3 hours, covering Guide 2.0, the Portal, DiscoverWater.org and more
- Award-winning 616-page Guide 2.0 Book with 60+ water education activities for all levels and subjects
- Correlations for Project WET activities to state and national curriculum standards
- FREE access to the Project WET Portal
Click here to learn more or to buy the course. Get started today!
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Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!
May 6th-10th is Teacher Appreciation Week! In honor of all the teachers who make Project WET work around the world, we've created a short video of thanks:
Teacher Appreciation Week from Project WET on Vimeo.
To comment on this or any other Project WET blog entry or on the website in general, please contact us on social media or via email. We can be reached on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google + and LinkedIn.
Coordinator Spotlight: Julie Scanlin of Idaho
This is the latest in a series of profiles and interviews of Project WET USA Coordinators, now compiled by Erica Cox, Project WET Missouri State Coordinator.
Julie Scanlin, Idaho
This month's featured coordinator is Julie Scanlin from Idaho Water Resources Research Institute - University of Idaho. Julie was one of the first Project WET Coordinators, serving since 1996, and she has a wide range of experience and expertise with Project WET and professional development. She also has been very active in promoting WET workshops and providing extended workshops with Project WET in Idaho. Project WET President and CEO Dennis Nelson says, "I've known Julie since the early days of Project WET and always look forward to our ‘straight talk' conversations on how to improve Project WET. I appreciate her work in water education in Idaho and her leadership in Project WET USA."
Project WET (PW): Why did you want to be a Project WET Coordinator?
Julie Scanlin (JS): Project WET has long and productive history in Idaho. Idaho was one of the four original activity development and test states in 1991-92 along with North Dakota, Arizona and Montana. I was already doing environmental education and was a supporter of some of the original WET workshops in Idaho. As I watched the program develop, I became eager to join the Project WET team when the opportunity was available. I love the Idaho outdoors and environmental education, and I love working with teachers. I saw right away how Project WET could enhance what I was doing-it was a perfect fit.
PW: What is unique about your water address and how does it impact the way you use Project WET?
JS: We all have a direct, obvious connection and need for water, but in Idaho people are intimately connected on many levels to water. We are a geographically large, resource-diverse and mostly rural state. Our biggest city is just under 210,000 people, so even "urban" folks mostly live along the rivers. That means people in Idaho have a direct physical connection and spend a lot of time outside in and around water. The northern part of Idaho is rivers, big lakes, forests and dry-land agriculture with moderate-to-high (for the West) precipitation of 20 to 40 inches per year. The southern portion is high desert with a few big rivers, lots of reservoirs and low precipitation of 10 to 12 inches per year, while still supporting huge irrigated agricultural activities. Livelihoods depend directly on water through hydropower, irrigation, recreation, industry and even shipping, since Idaho has the farthest inland seaport in the Western United States. It seems nearly everyone is on or around the water to recreate on a regular basis - fishing, rafting, swimming, and camping! The Project WET core belief "water is for all users" really applies here.
I have the opportunity to take advantage of these personal connections to enhance learning opportunities and connections between industry, agriculture, recreation, power companies, water services managers, irrigators and city and county officials and their schools, teachers and students. Though we still have our differences and occasional conflicts, it is rewarding to be able to provide sound, basic information and connections that help Idahoans better understand and use their water resources.
PW: What is your fondest or funniest Project WET memory?
JS: Project WET Coordinators are the best and most fun of any professional group I know. I work with lots of different groups but as a whole I have never met or worked with such professional, generous, creative and committed, yet fun, bunch of people. Though I'm at a loss to pick one specific memory, being with these folk at our WET annual conferences or writing workshops always renews me. I have developed lifelong friendships as we've worked together on the Council, projects and programs for WET-and that's what makes it special.
To learn more about Julie and the Idaho Water Resources Research Institute-University of Idaho, visit the IWRRI website. And stay tuned for the next Coordinator Spotlight!
Previous Coordinator Spotlights:
To comment on this or any other Project WET blog entry or on the website in general, please contact us on social media or via email. We can be reached on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google + and LinkedIn.
Discovery Ayuda: “Project WET seeks to create healthier communities in the slums of Rio”
This is a translation of an article written by Paula Rizzi in Spanish and published on Discovery Ayuda [Discovery Help], a Spanish-language website of the Discovery Network, on 24 April 2013.
In the last 20 years, problems related to the use and supply of drinking water have been increasing. As explained by the United Nations, "One in three people live in a country with moderate to high water scarcity, and it is possible that by 2030, shortages will affect nearly half the world's population, as demand may exceed supply by 40 percent."
Given that our future is tied to this resource and that one of the biggest challenges worldwide is to ensure sustainable water management, there are some successful projects that emphasize education, conservation and drinking water supply in different areas of the world.
These include the Project Water Education for Teachers (WET) Foundation, a nonprofit organization working since 1984 to bring water education to children, parents, teachers and communities around the world. One project in the region [of Latin America] is the Education and Water program (Educação e água) in Rio de Janeiro, which puts the focus on the slums of the Brazilian city. In these historically marginalized areas, some 1.2 million people live and often suffer from problems related to water and sanitation.
In an interview with Discovery Ayuda [a Spanish-language website of the Discovery Network], Nicole Ritter, Project WET's communications manager, and Julia Nelson, LAC projects manager, said that the decision to work in Rio happened in 2011, when Nelson traveled to Rio and visited one of the schools in the favelas. The favela's residents faced daily water problems that threatened their health.
"Pirated water connections-locally called los gatos [cats]-were everywhere, and many of them were broken, leaking or even contaminated," Nelson and Ritter said in an email. "Sporadic garbage collection and improper trash disposal had led to piles of waste that were causing storm drains to overflow and jeopardizing water quality. Hand washing with soap-a highly effective way to prevent illness-was not being practiced. Diseases like dengue fever and leptospirosis were common. And since many of the favelas are built into hillsides, the water contamination that was occurring there was being carried directly into Rio's watershed."
Seeing the situation, Nelson thought the education model on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) that Project WET had successfully used in other countries could improve this situation.
Educate, empower, act
Project WET seeks to raise awareness not only about how to protect and care for water resources but also on how to use water to improve health.
"Educating people about recycling and proper trash disposal, for example, protects shared water resources by preventing germs and other contaminants in trash from being carried into the water supply as water flows through communities. Teaching children to wash their hands with soap and water can reduce their risk of disease by 45 percent, according to the World Health Organization. Informing school kids about how diseases like dengue spread with the help of standing water and showing them how to keep water safer can help them be healthier as well. All of these small actions add up to big improvements in the water situation in these areas," Ritter and Nelson explained.
That is why the Education and Water program in the favelas of Rio aims to teach kids some changes in daily habits in relation to water.
"We focus on children because research shows that changing behavior in children can influence larger behavior changes in the community. Children bring home their lessons about water protection and conservation to their parents, who in turn adopt the behaviors. In this way, schools can be engines of positive social change," they continue.
Project WET works in Rio with the help of local teachers, health centers, NGOs, government officials and the community, developing educational materials for teachers and children ages three to 12. Within this strategy are also proposed hands-on activities that teach healthy habits. As a result, communities are learning to reduce diarrhea by implementing hygiene techniques to prevent dengue through appropriate management of water and to prevent pollution through better waste disposal and clean, safe water intake.
Project WET also works in other Latin American countries such as El Salvador, Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia and Peru, offering educational activities on water and sanitation to thousands of children in the region.
To learn more about Project WET and its local initiatives, visit the Project WET website.