CU Boulder hosts Children's Water Festival for area elementary schools

May 18—Fourth and fifth graders learned about flood risks by getting doused in an outdoor shower, about water quality by identifying macroinvertebrates from local creeks and about water conservation by running in a plant watering relay race.

"It's a really good learning experience to see things I haven't seen before," said Maddy Dolfi, a fourth grader at Erie's Black Rock Elementary.

The hands-on activities were part of the Children's Water Festival held Thursday at the University of Colorado Boulder, which co-hosts the festival with the city of Boulder. About 1,200 fourth and fifth graders from area schools attended the long-running festival, which returned this year after a three-year hiatus during the pandemic.

"I'm so glad this is back," said Patti Bleil, who teaches fourth- and fifth-graders at Boulder's Community Montessori and has brought her classes to the festival for many years. "It's such a great way for kids to learn about water conservation."

Presenters included staff members from Boulder, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Growing Gardens, Eco-Cycle and the National Space Science and Technology Institute.

Boulder's water quality team brought in water samples from Thunderbird Pond and Left Hand Creek that were filled with macroinvertebrates, then gave students syringes, perti dishes, magnifying glasses and identification guides.

The idea, they said, is to teach students about water quality based on which macroinvertebrates are present. Leeches and redworms, for example, can thrive in polluted water, while mayfly larvae is only present when the water quality is high.

"If you see a mayfly, you're more likely to want to swim there," Mike Williams said.

At another station, led by Classrooms for Climate Action, students learned about the lower water needs of native plants when compared to Kentucky bluegrass through a relay race. One team had to fill a "native plants" bin partway with cups of water, while the other team was required to fill a "Kentucky bluegrass" bin closer to the top.

"People watering non-functional turf is very stupid," Community Montessori fifth-grader Luc Idee said after his class went through the station.

Other presenters asked students to catch Ping-Pong balls in a lesson about watersheds; scoop snow and melt it to measure the water content; and answer water trivia questions to win a chance to get soaked in an outdoor shower that mimicked two, five, 25 or 100 year floods.

In an activity led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, students created a watershed model using crumpled paper for the terrain that they colored with markers to represent roads, landfills, parks, homes and other features. Then they sprayed the paper with water to mimic rain and watched as the colors bled into each other.

"I had a really big mountain and the water dripped down each side," said Wyatt Patrick, who's in fourth grade at Boulder's High Peaks Elementary.

He said he liked the interactive activities and seeing students from other schools, adding it's important to learn about water because "we have a lot of water around us."

"It's good to know how much we waste and where we need water," he said.

Community Montessori fifth-grader Evalina Lasky-Perkin said the watering relay race was her favorite activity, adding she hadn't known that native grasses required so much less water than the grass typically used in lawns.

"It was really cool that we got an opportunity to learn how to make a difference," she said.