NJPIRG Community Water Watch's 9th Annual Education Week was a success! We taught a total over 2,100 students in Newark, Trenton, Camden, and Atlantic City about the importance of protecting and restoring New Jersey's threatened waterways.  We brought fun lessons into the classrooms that reflected our theme: "Water: We H2O It!"

Through the lessons, children in grades K-8 learned that water is a precious community resource that is essential to the health of our communities.  In honor of the civic teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the lessons also fostered a sense of environmental stewardship and civic engagement.

A total of forty-eight college students from nine campuses across the state volunteered a week of their winter break to serve their community by participating in Education Week, and nine Water Watch organizers worked tirelessly to coordinate the week.

We were really impressed by the young students we met. They often came up with ingenious solutions to water conservation and pollution problems, and they were ready to roll up their sleeves and get started cleaning up our waterways.

The students were also excited to go home and tell their parents what they learned, eager to start their own environmental clubs at their schools, and one student even came up with a song to stop water pollution.  In all the cities, students asked when we were coming back and in Atlantic City one class even voted to give us an A!

A big thank you to all of our community partners who joined us for our launch event in Trenton and in classrooms throughout the week, including: Matt Krone from the Passaic Valley Sewage Commission; Kim Pereira from the office of District 29 Assemblyman Albert Coutinho; Leonard Thomas from SPARK; Kim Gaddy from NJEF; Michelle Kovatch from the Greater Newark Conservancy; Assemblywoman Grace Spencer from District 29; Americorps Commissioner and Dean of Students at Rider University Tony Campbell; NJ Americorps Program Officer Patricia Schwartz; Grace Sica from the Sierra Club; Doug O'Malley from EnvironmentNJ; Environmental Education Specialist Marc Rogoff; Jennifer Lear, County Naturalist for the Mercer County Park Commission; Peter Kroll from the NJ Conservation Foundation; NJ DEP Watershed Ambassadors; Mayor of Atlantic City Lorenzo Langford; Lynn Maun from the Great Egg Harbor Watershed Association; and Arthur Webster and Erin from the Forsythe Wildlife Refuge.

Also check out our report from Education Week 2008 to watch video's of our organizers in action!