GLENDALE, Wis. — World Water Day is an annual United Nations observance day held on March 22 to advocate for global freshwater resources.
In the Milwaukee suburb of Glendale, students at Glen Hills Middle School honored World Water Day by learning about water conservation.
Students learned about water testing, how trash gets into our local waterways, and how to protect water sources.
“Building young people to become the next water scientists, the stewards, will be the way we transform the future into something that is sustainable, livable, and just a wonderful world,” said Brigid Meyers, Water Challenge Manager at Earth Echo International.
At one exhibit, fourth grader Emet Girton stared at a picture of a dead sperm whale that washed up on a beach in Spain.
“It wasn’t just the plastics in the fish that killed it. There were also toxic chemicals,” said Girton, who learned this whale’s death could have been prevented. “So many pieces of plastics, instead of being thrown out into the ocean, can be reused very easily. I feel bad for animals when they die because they don’t know any better, because they think it’s just fish and they think that it’s food, except they don’t know that it’s full of toxic chemicals.”
Students also took the “Flushing Challenge Pledge” which helps kids understand how flushing our toilets can have an impact on our water ecosystems. They learned how wastewater is treated and the challenges community infrastructures face when things that are non-flushable are flushed.
Many of the fourth graders shared what they learned from that.
“Dog poop goes into the river if you don’t pick it up,” said student Braylon Duhart.
“That’s because when it rains, all the stuff that people don’t pick up, it goes into Lake Michigan,” said student Elmonte Allen.
“Then you can make sure you don’t do bad things to hurt the environment,” said student Makenna Krukar.
Glen Hills teacher Lalitha Murali hopes the lessons hit home what a wonderful resource it is to live so close to one of the Great Lakes.
“We are a very small percentage of people who are very lucky to live near the freshwater resource, and as educators, it is our duty to educate our next generation of citizens to take care of our environment,” said Murali.
