Fun and Educational: Rio Rancho Children's Water Festival

Water is a precious resource, especially in arid locations such as New Mexico. Educating children on topics of water management and conservation is valuable and has far–reaching and long lasting impacts. The City of Rio Rancho, New Mexico developed a Children's Water Festival with aims of educating children in the community. This effort was supported by CH2M HILL, which provides operations and maintenance for the city's water and wastewater systems. The city wants the two–day festival to be fun, educational, and effective with measurable increases in knowledge about water preservation issues and in impact to water conservation objectives. The festival is a two–day event with interactive, hands–on activities for the fourth grade students. Students' knowledge is tested before and after the festival. Since the first festival in 2008, more than 2,400 students have received water education training and the tests show a marked improvement in education about water issues.