DWS Water Education Kit Commemorates Earth Day

In commemoration of Earth Day on Friday, April 22, the Department of Water Supply, County of Hawai‘i, is launching a virtual education program that provides tools and resources so keiki can learn about their drinking water, and the importance of protecting its quality and quantity.

Students, teachers, and parents are encouraged to visit www.hawaiidws.org to explore the new water education at-home toolkit offering free, age-appropriate materials that can be downloaded and used remotely. The toolkit features various water-themed word searches, activity books, and even a volunteer pledge to end water waste. Starting Friday, all those exercises and more will be available by clicking the “community” drop-down menu on the website’s homepage.

DWS welcomes everyone to enjoy the fun activities to better understand why safe drinking water is our most precious resource and how to become stewards of it. Taking shorter showers, fixing leaking faucets, and turning off the tap while brushing your teeth are easy ways to reduce wasting water. The online materials also stress the need to preserve and protect the quality of the island’s fresh water sources. Effective strategies include keeping trash out of rivers, not dumping oil or other hazardous materials into the ground, and drinking water from the tap rather than out of plastic bottles that can end up littering roadsides.

Celebrated annually since 1970, Earth Day is held to increase public awareness of the world’s environmental problems and is credited for having helped establish the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Today, Earth Day is observed in 192 countries and coordinated by the nonprofit www.earthday.org/. This year’s theme is Invest in Our Planet.

For more information or assistance, please contact Jason Armstrong, DWS Information and Education Specialist, at jarmstrong@hawaiidws.org or 808-961-8050.