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Center for Water and the Environment partners with Explora! to offer Water Mania! program to NM middle- and high-school students

October 6, 2020 - by Kim Delker

Water scientists from The University of New Mexico’s Center for Water and the Environment will be leading an educational series about water science in cooperation with Explora! this fall.

Sessions are being offered the weeks of October 5, October 19, November 2, and November 16. They are geared toward students in middle school and high school.

Students will work with the scientists in a virtual classroom to do hands-on water resource activities over 3 one-hour sessions. Activities include testing water quality; building water level monitors; and an exploration of careers in water management and resources.

All students will receive activity materials before the virtual program and will be guided by the UNM scientists. Students will gain knowledge in a variety of areas, including coding, inventing, working on water samples, and how to determine water quality.

Sydney Donohue, the outreach coordinator for the Center for Water and the Environment, said the original goal of the class was to be an afterschool camp, but the current circumstances changed the program’s focus.

“We are now partnering with teachers instead to help them with the changes that come with teaching virtually this semester,” she said.

Along with Donohue, the UNM group is made up of Center for Water and the Environment staff members Katelin Fisher and Carson Odell Lee, as well as undergraduate students Taylor Busch and Derek Capitan.

Those interested in participating should contact Anthony Salvagno at asalvagno@explora.us

The Center for Water and the Environment is a research center housed under the School of Engineering and supported by the Centers for Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) program at the National Science Foundation.

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