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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Reminder: Call for Presentations
Click here to download the Call for Presentations.
Have something to share with the world about water education? Project WET's upcoming Sustaining the Blue Planet: Global Water Education Conference offers educators, NGOs, corporations, water resource managers and others the chance to contribute to the global dialogue on water in one of five categories:
- Innovations in Water Education: How is water education being used in new and more effective ways in schools and communities?
- Successful Approaches to WASH Education: How are effective program models and innovative partnerships in WASH education resulting in behavior changes and local solutions?
- Technology & Water Education: What are ways that technology can be used to expand the scope and reach of water education and to assist in solving water issues?
- Encouraging Water Education in Corporate Sustainability:How are corporations using employee education and training to promote personal sustainability practices and business goals while helping employees effectively and credibly tell their company's water and sustainability story through strategic interaction with schools, communities and other key local, national and global stakeholders? How can corporate giving support educational programs that lead to meaningful results and actions?
- Education Solutions for Priority Water Topics: What are the most successful methods for addressing the most important water challenges of the day, including risk (drought and floods); watersheds; ground water; water and health, including water, sanitation and hygiene; storm water; pharmaceuticals and personal care products in water; weather and climate change; water and energy; water conservation.
Click here to download the Call for Presentations.
The deadline for submission is March 31st. Don't miss your chance to be involved!
New & Noteworthy: Project WET’s Winter 2011 Newsletter
Are you subscribed to Project WET's quarterly newsletter? (If not, click here to subscribe!) The latest issue went out to subscribers last week and includes news from Africa, the United States, France, Montana and more! Stay on top of the Project WET happenings and subscribe today.
To view Project WET's archived newsletters, visit our Newsletters page.
Picture This: Going south for the winter
Members of the latest class of The Traveling School—following on the work of their predecessors last semester—visited Project WET to learn how to teach some of our water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) materials before embarking on their Latin America term. Project WET's Julia Nelson and Morgan Perlson led the training, which will allow trainees to work with the other Traveling School students so that they can all teach some WASH lessons in the schools that they visit in Latin America.
Julia explains the rules for "The Soap Story", a game that teaches how soap works to remove germs and why it is important.
A Traveling School student attempts to remove herself from the "chain" of disease transmission.
Glitter on Morgan's hands stands in for germs to demonstrate how diseases can be easily spread by everyday contact.
One of the Traveling School teachers acts out the part of a mosquito as she moves in to "infect" a student with Dengue Fever.
New & Noteworthy: Celebrate World Wetlands Day with Free KIDs Booklets!
Did you know that today is World Wetlands Day? In fact, today is the 40th anniversary of the Convention on Wetlands, an international treaty seeks to preserve wetlands. As the Ramsar Convention website explains:
February 2 of each year is World Wetlands Day. It marks the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on 2 February 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Each year since 1997, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and groups of citizens at all levels of the community have taken advantage of the opportunity to undertake actions aimed at raising public awareness of wetland values and benefits in general and the Ramsar Convention in particular.
The theme for the 2011 World Wetlands Day is Wetlands and Forests, chosen because 2011 is the UN International Year of Forests. The Ramsar website contains downloadable activities, posters and other resources for celebrating World Wetlands Day. Project WET also has resources on wetlands, including WOW! The Wonders of Wetlands educators guide and the Celebrate Wetlands! children's activity booklet.
WOW! The Wonders of Wetlands has 70 pages of background material followed by more than 40 cross-referenced activities, making the guide is a valuable resource for K-12 teachers. Every page is thoughtfully laid out with informative text, stunning photography, along with easy-to-read sidebars, maps and illustrations. Activities are neatly organized into five sections: wetlands definitions, wetlands plants and animals, water quality and supply issues, soils and people. The appendix also provides instructions for planning and developing a schoolyard wetland habitat.
Part of the Kids in Discovery series (KIDs), Celebrate Wetlands! makes being swamped fun! Saturated with eye-opening facts and hands-on activities, this book will whet students' appetites for nature, science and culture.
Both books are available on the Project WET store or by calling us toll-free (in the United States) at 866-337-5486. Those outside of the toll-free access area can call +1-406-585-2236.
Edited to add: Matthew Garcia, on his blog Hydro-Logic, has a great post on some of the history and current importance of World Wetlands Day. It's worth a read.