The Story of Water Festival 2002

Is there water on Zork?  What’s it like to be 'Swimmin’ in the Rio Grande'?  Who’s Got the Water?

Nearly 1000 4th grade students from Albuquerque, Los Lunas and Rio Rancho learned the answers to these water questions and much more at the 4th Children’s Water Festival, a celebration of water education, held at the Albuquerque Convention Center on October 17th and 18th.

As they got off the buses, the students were greeted by the Water Wizard 'who knows all there is to know about H2O'. Later, they met the Xeric City Scarecrow who assisted them as they built water filters to purify water from the Rio Grande. Students negotiated water sharing agreements, and looked for “bugs” in the water to determine its purity, created a mini-river and used a groundwater model to 'see' how water moves underground.

This year, students from Highland and Rio Grande High Schools were Masters of Ceremony for the Water Jeopardy competition, Bosque School students taught about Our Cottonwood Forest, and Albuquerque Academy Environment Club members showed the 4th graders how to make an Edible Aquifer. 'The younger students pay special attention because they really respect the older students.' said Festival Manager Susan Gorman.

Why a Water Festival? In various ways, water has been in the news all summer. Back in May, we learned that we could not hike many of our favorite trails or visit those special places. Why? Not enough water; fire danger too high. The fires of 2002 will be remembered for a long, long time - many square miles of forests gone, houses lost, millions of dollars spent to fight the fires. Why? A complex of reasons including not enough water. All summer we waited for the monsoons to come - to wake to the sound of pattering on the roof or the special smell of new rain. Finally, a few mini-monsoons came late but the total precipitation for the year is well below normal. The water challenges faced by residents of the Middle Rio Grande valley are serious now. Imagine how much greater these challenges may become.

In 15 years or so, these students will be the water engineers and managers; the voters and decision makers. They will have to make critical choices about water and they must have the facts, concepts, values and critical thinking skills to do that. Festival organizers hope that the Water Festival provides teachers and their students with some of those water facts and concepts and values and that the Festival is a catalyst that sets off a chain reaction for ever more water education to take place in every school and each home.

Dozens of organizations and individuals donated time, resources and money to make the Water Festival possible. More than 175 volunteers helped guide groups of students, present activities, assist the presenters, or do a variety of tasks to ensure that the event ran smoothly and that the students had fun while they learned. The fiscal sponsor is New Mexico Water Conservation Alliance. The Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club was a lead donor to the Water Festival, as were New Mexico Environment Department, Surface Water Quality Bureau; US Environmental Protection Agency, Region 6, CWA Section 319; US Bureau of Reclamation; the City of Albuquerque, Public Works / Water Resources; Bernalillo County Environmental Health Department; and the City of Rio Rancho Utilities Dept./Water Conservation Office. Nine other organizations are also financial contributors to the Water Festival.

The next Water Festival will be in Santa Fe in March 2003. Look for info elsewhere on this site.

To see some pictures of what happened at Middle Rio Grande Water Festival 2002, click here.

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Return to the Children's Water Festival Page