It’s the youngest generation that can make the biggest difference for our future. That’s why the New York Water team visited an elementary school to teach students about water conservation. And it was easy to get the third graders at Shaw Avenue School in Valley Stream, NY excited about saving one of our most precious natural resources.
They were engaged and enthusiastic during the lessons presented by Richard Kern, Senior Manager, Production and Shannen McDonald, Program Manager II, Water Efficiency.
During five separate 30-minute lessons, Rich and Shannen used age-appropriate language and tools to demonstrate why water conservation is vital for their future and shared many steps they could take at home and school to use less water. To drive the lesson home, each student had the opportunity to pump water from a groundwater model that Shannen built and to visit a play sink to demonstrate best practices when washing dishes or brushing their teeth.
At the end of the lesson, the children in each class demonstrated that they had learned where water comes from – they practiced saying the word aquifer many times – and repeated the ways in which they could save water to ensure that the aquifer supplying Long Islanders with potable water doesn’t run dry.
One of the third-grade teachers confirmed that the visit was a success. “I just wanted to thank you again for a wonderful presentation,” she said. “The boys and girls were so excited to learn about so many ways to conserve water. You guys rocked it!”
Students were given a weekend challenge to save water and mark down their conservation efforts on a tally sheet shared with them. The class that saved the most gallons of water won water conservation coloring books to learn even more while having fun.
These kids are now certainly turning water off while scrubbing dishes (they were all begging to do this at the play sink), taking shorter showers, and sharing these and other tips with their families. They were eager to practice all of the conservation tips they learned, and we are confident they will be working to ensure that there is plenty of water available to them for years to come.
