Educating youth
Water Awareness Day teaches kids about conservation

Autumn Armijo, (from right), Kealy Collison, Paul Andrade and Max Faz poke around in a dish of water that has living water insects and crustaceans on Tuesday. Hundreds of students from various schools came to Water Awareness Day at Red Rock State Park. — © 2009 Gallup Independent / Brian Leddy

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Staff writer

GALLUP — Do you know the reasons for the decline of the Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout? Or what the most dangerous bacteria that’s found in drinking water? Or what is the purpose of a liquid waste system?

The 350 fourth- and fifth-grade students who attended Tuesday’s McKinley County Water Awareness Day probably know the answers to those questions — if not a few dozen more. The annual educational festival, sponsored by the city of Gallup and held at Red Rock Park, featured more than a dozen presenters from Arizona and New Mexico that shared information about water and energy conservation, native wildlife, and environmental issues.

According to festival organizer Elizabeth Barriga, the water conservation coordinator for Gallup, 15 classes of students attended the Water Awareness Day on Tuesday. A second day of activities will continue Wednesday at Miyamura High School. In addition to the presenters, volunteers from the community help stage the festival, and about 32 high school and mid-school students act as student ambassadors and assist with the event.

Popular presentations seem to be the activities that are hands-on, or in some cases “hands-in.” The Rolling River Trailer, filled with a gravel-like substance that is actually ground-up, recycled plastic, offers students the chance to play with the stuff like a big watery mud pie while they learn about the science of rivers. Half-way through his Tuesday morning schedule, Red Rock Elementary fifth-grader Terrell Daw said the Rolling River Trailer had been his favorite presentation so far.

Other students that got their hands wet were those who attended the presentation of Steven Sanders from the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. While Jackie Ramirez’s fifth grade students from Gallup Catholic examined river bugs under microscopes, Sanders explained that his aquatic macroinvertebrates activity offered students the chance to identify fish forage and learn about water quality indicators.

Outside in the courtyard, members of the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority’s laboratory team put student volunteers in aprons, gloves, and goggles to demonstrate how NTUA tests chlorine and fluoride levels in water on the Navajo Nation.

Other presenters used games to get their messages across to kids. The Cibola National Forest, Mount Taylor Ranger District, sponsored a board game inspired by the Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout’s life cycle. According to Alyssa Benally, a fourth-grader from Stagecoach Elementary School, students played the game by moving fish game pieces around the board as they learned about the fish’s life cycle. The player whose fish made it around the board first was the winner. Classmate Ciara Campos was the winner of Benally’s game.

Students lucky enough to be scheduled into Gary Vaughn’s solar energy presentation were rewarded with a chocolate chip cookie that was freshly baked in Vaughn’s outdoor solar oven. Vaughn, from the New Mexico Solar Energy Association, had students turning water faucets off and on by blocking or allowing sunlight to hit a solar panel, and he had them looking around Red Rock Park for the “hundreds of thousands of solar panels” around them — leaves on trees.

With Red Rock fifth-grader Gabriella Olivar riding a bike to generate electricity for light bulbs, Vaughn explained to Gabriella’s class how much electricity was needed for other household items. “It would take all of you riding bicycles at the same time to run a little hair dryer,” he told them.

The idea behind the Water Awareness Day, Barriga explained, is for area students to share the messages they learn at the festival with their families, particularly the messages of water and energy conservation. “We don’t want to keep it with just these kids,” she said.

Another way the festival spreads its message is through a T-shirt design contest run by art teacher John Ohle of Miyamura High School. Art students from Miyamura create designs for the festival, and the winning design is printed on free T-shirts for all the fourth- and fifth-grade students. This year’s winning design was created by Ernestine Armstrong. Danny Garcia came in second, and Jamie Eddy won third place.

Other presenters in this year’s Water Awareness Day included USDA NRCS Los Lunas Plant Materials Center; the city of Santa Fe; Gallup Solar; Navajo EPA; Wildlife Rescue, Inc.; Northern Arizona University; Smart Use, LLC; Bureau of Reclamation; New Mexico Environmental Department; National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration; Soils and Water Conservation District; and Sandia Laboratory.