Since its inception in 2001, more than 20,700 students and 5,051 teachers and parent helpers have attended the Peterborough Children’s Water Festival (PCWF) to learn about water protection and conservation.
In the 15 years that it has been running, the festival has functioned as a two-day event but that changes this fall — the thrills of the PCWF are coming to you!
Each May, the Peterborough Children’s Water Festival will continue to engage school children in grades two to five with hands-on activities about how we use, interact with, and conserve water. This year, with support from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, we are launching a new program called Wonders of Water (WOW).
The WOW program extends the learning from the Water Festival throughout the academic school year with a broader age range (K – 8).
Before piloting the program this fall, we are inviting children, parents, and educators to join our Show and Tell event on Tuesday, August 30th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. to engage with and test out our WOW program materials. The event takes place at the Silver Bean Café in Millennium Park in Peterborough.
The goal of the WOW program is to engage children about water in our community, to help kids understand where our drinking water comes from and where our wastewater goes, and to discuss how we can help keep our water clean for humans, plants, and animals.
Our Show and Tell event will showcase WOW program activities. Attendees will have the opportunity to participate, ask questions, provide suggestions, and have fun with water. Rrefreshments will be provided.
Show and Tell attendees with have the opportunity to engage with materials from three classroom programs and dig into three community bins which contain activities developed for children of a variety of age groups such as for Girl Guides, Scouts, home schools, and after-school programs.
When WOW commences, the classroom programs are intended for primary, junior, and intermediate grade levels — Kindergarten to Grade 8 — and will be facilitated by a GreenUP Educator while the community bins will be non-facilitated, but come with a set of activity instructions to guide community groups through the activities.
WOW activities consist of water science experiments, such as separating sediment from water samples or looking at insect larvae that indicate a stream’s water quality. They also look at the heroes and villains of water quality, such as the plants and animals that help keep our water clean from pollutants, such as oil and road salt.
Additionally, the intermediate level program explores the processes of water treatment and wastewater treatment — how the water flowing from our taps reaches us from the Otonabee River, and where our wastewater is treated before being returned to the river.
We also consider why drinking water is the best beverage choice for children, and how we can conserve water in our everyday activities, such as by taking shorter showers and planting gardens that are drought-tolerant. The Healthy Kids Community Challenge has supported this component of the WOW program.
Please join us on August 30th at Silver Bean Café to test out the new WOW program or contact us for more information. We look forward to providing this extension of the Peterborough Children’s Water Festival to classrooms and community groups starting this fall!
For more information about WOW, to register your class or group, or to sign up as a volunteer, contact Jenn McCallum at 705-745-3238 ext. 208 or jenn.mccallum@greenup.on.ca.
