We need your help to bring effective STEAM education to Arizona 4th grade students. Click here, or scan below to start your sponsorship today!
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Dear Interested Sponsor:
Arizona Water Festivals instill a deeper understanding of water in the earth system and Arizona’s water resources through a community water festival event, teacher professional development workshop, and extensive volunteer and community involvement. The AWF program will equip teachers with resources and strategies to engage their fourth graders in a fun and interactive celebration of water, while meeting the Arizona Science Standards. Discovering how water works in the earth system and where arid Arizona gets its water brings science, mathematics, engineering, and technology alive for students.
Why partner with Arizona Project WET to bring water festivals to Arizona 4th graders? Arizona Water Festivals will take place in 36 communities in the 2025-26 school year. We continually strive to grow the program to reach more Arizona students, teachers, and parents. In any given community, a sponsor, a partner, or a school district can drive the inception of a new water festival. Sometimes school districts take the lead and sometimes sponsors do, but we need both to make the AWF a go. If there is interest from one entity, Arizona Project WET is happy to work with all organizations to make a festival happen in that community. However, not all communities in Arizona are able to fund their own water festival. We need your help to make this program happen for students and teachers in Arizona!
How does the AWF Model work? The program begins with the Arizona Water Festival online teacher professional development workshop, which requires attendance to participate in the program. During the workshop, teachers are trained in content that is not covered in most 4th grade curriculum and will receive access to the Arizona Water Festival Curriculum Unit guide and a copy of Project WET Curriculum and Activity Guide, that will prepare and extend student learning before and after the festival. The AWF curriculum unit is designed to fulfill multiple 4th grade science standards using student-centered, 3-dimensional learning. This focuses on doing science and emphasizes recognizing relationships that connect all sciences and other fields of study. Specifically, the Arizona Water Festival Curriculum Unit puts students at the center of their own water cycle observing the phenomena that relate to the environment in which they live. At the festival, students accompanied by their teachers will travel to four 1/2-hour learning stations where trained community volunteers facilitate an investigation of watersheds, groundwater, the water cycle, and water sustainability actions.
How do we know the water festival is effective? Each year participating teachers administer questionnaires before and after implementation of the AWF Curriculum Unit to gauge student understanding of watersheds, the groundwater system, the water cycle, and water stewardship. Student knowledge gains are measured and used to continually assess and improve the water festival program. In addition, all participating teachers and community volunteers are surveyed after the festival to quantify the impact on the educational experience and the community.
“Arizona Project WET delivers authentic, relevant, and meaningful community-focused water education.”
