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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Three Ways to Celebrate World Water Day 2013
On World Water Day, the Project WET Foundation can help you bring water cooperation into your classroom. Here are three ways to get ready to mark the day:
1. Lead a Water Cooperation Activity
Highlighting eight worldwide water users (Earth Systems, Navigation, Fish and Wildlife, Agriculture, Business/Industry, Energy, Municipal and Recreation), Project WET's activity "8-4-1, One for All" helps students understand why international water cooperation is both important and challenging. Purchase "8-4-1" as a download from the Project WET Store.
2. Share a Book About Water Cooperation
Celebrate and teach water cooperation this World Water Day with our classic Kids in Discovery series booklet, Water Every Drop Counts. Packed with interactive activities, this title teaches a vital lesson: Water is life. Give this book to a favorite teacher, or buy a copy for your own family.
3. Click to Learn How We All Use Water
Did you know that we use water even when we can't see it? Learn about the water that is used to grow the food we eat and to create the products we consume and how all water users interact by checking out "We All Use Water" on DiscoverWater.org. (Extensive Educator Resources as well as printable Science Notebook pages for students are available, too!) Visit this FREE resource today to find out how "We All Use Water."
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Project Spotlight: “Educação e Água” with Earth Child Institute in Brazil
Rio de Janeiro is enjoying the international spotlight. The second largest city in Brazil, Rio will host both the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. More than six million people call the city, beloved for its scenery and samba, home.
In the past, however, Rio was internationally known for violence-wracked and impoverished slum areas, called favelas. Ignored as illegal settlements by the local and national governments, the favelas developed their own infrastructure and governance. Often, those ad hoc systems lacked functional services to handle necessary municipal services like water and sanitation. With international events looming, the government has been trying to integrate these neglected communities and improve the lives of the people who live there.
Ad hoc water connections are often surrounded by trash.
Project WET has an educational program underway in Rio's favelas, focusing on improving health through water education along with local partner Earth Child Institute (ECI) in the Grande Tijuca area. Approximately 20,000 students and 1,000 educators in six favelas will be involved in the project.
Using proper trash receptacles is critical to preserving water quality.(Photo by Suzan Christiaans)
Grande Tijuca was chosen after discussions with UPPSocial and municipal government representatives in Rio de Janeiro. The Tijuca area is in the Northern Zone of Rio, surrounded by Tijuca National Park, the third largest urban forest in the world. The many springs and rivers in Tijuca and the surrounding National Park are part of a significant watershed that drains into the Guanabara Bay of Rio de Janeiro. The area also has several favelas nestled in the mountains of the national park. Ignored by development projects and reliant on the water of the Tijuca forest, the Grande Tijuca area is an ideal area to implement the program in Rio. ECI has been instrumental in helping Project WET implement the Educação e Água (Education and Water) program.
ECI is helping collect baseline data on the hand washing behaviors of school children as well as the sanitation and hygiene conditions at select schools in the program area. In addition, they are helping field test the materials that are being customized for Rio and will assist in organizing the trainings that will take place after the materials are finished. Once the project has been implemented, ECI will follow up with data collection to determine the effectiveness of the materials and trainings.
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Water + Sound = Something Unique
What happens when you run a stream of water in front of sound waves? If you've got the right equipment, this:
Many of this user's videos involve water experiments like this one. Enjoy!
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“RIO” Field Trips Teach Kids and Teachers about the Waters of New Mexico
The Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority—a Project WET partner in Albuquerque, New Mexico—is using Project WET materials to help area students and teachers understand their relationship to local water places. Called River Is Ours (RIO), the program takes 4th grade students and teachers to Rio Grande Nature Center State Park. While students are taking part in the Project WET activities, teachers are learning how to conduct them, providing real-world training for future water education lessons in their classrooms.
In "8-4-1, One for All", students have to carry a can of river water under a branch to simulate drought. They have to really work together and stay focused to protect the water and deliver it downstream.
"Albuquerque Waters"—a blend of 2 Project WET activities, "Urban Waters" and "Blue River"—students make a water model of Albuquerque, including where water comes from and where it goes to. Albuquerque Bernalillo staff then explain how and Colorado River water comes out of faucets in Albuquerque. Afterwards, students receive "careers" from wherever they are standing so they can see how many jobs are available in water.
Students take photos with cameras lent to them for the trip, allowing them to do the "Make a Mural" activity to extend their learning once they return to the classroom. Fourth-grade classes take part because that is the year in which New Mexico history is covered in elementary school. The trip is also fully correlated with fourth-grade standards and benchmarks to help teachers meet their educational goals.
In "New Mexico Footprints in Time"— a combination of "Virtual Waters" and "First in Time Is First in Line", students open bins with artifacts in them from certain time periods. They have to decide which time period it is. Once they know which time period it is, they have to fill in a table that asks them to identify a plant artifact, an animal artifact, a source of light and a human activity.They fill in the table in their activity book which is full of photos of early New Mexico.
After the field trips, Sharon Silvinski, the Project WET Coordinator for Albuquerque Bernalillo, visits the schools that participated and helps the educators finish up their Project WET training. Silvinski covers all of Project WET's online resources, including the Project WET Portal and DiscoverWater.org, as well as locally relevant web resources like the Water Authority's site. Each teacher who takes part receives a Project WET Curriculum and Activity Guide 2.0 free of charge thanks to a sponsorship from Sandia Labs (Lockheed Martin).
So far, almost 50 teachers and more than 1,000 students have participated in the program, with approximately 20 additional educators and 500 more students projected to take part by the end of the school year. Silvinski says that the trips have been extremely popular, with teachers offering wonderful feedback. One participant enthused, "The best field trip I've taken in my 35 years of teaching!"
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.