Hundreds of students made a splash this week as the Peterborough Children’s Water Festival returned in-person for the first time since 2019.
The two-day festival at the Riverview Park and Zoo focuses on water education, conservation, protection and science, offering a number of hands-on experiments and interactive displays for students in Grades 2 to 5.
In total the festival will host 45 classes from 20 schools in the region, says Patricia Skopelianos, organizing committee chairperson.
For the past three years, the festival was held online. Since its inception in 2001, the festival has reached more than 29,000 elementary students and 6,400 teachers and parents helpers in the city and county.
“We are very fortunate to have tremendous community support for the Peterborough Children’s Water Festival,” said Skopelianos. “For 22 years, local businesses and agencies have made generous financial contributions. We also have many volunteers who give their time and expertise and several more who provide in-kind contributions. Our community helps make this festival a reality for the children.”
The interactive centres include Inspector H2O, Tapping the Source, Otterly Amazing and Doing the Laundry.
“Once again, we are also pleased to offer several activity centres in the French language with the involvement of students from St. Peter Catholic Secondary School,” said Skopelianos.
The festival also featured Elder Dorothy Taylor for a midday Sacred Water teaching along with the Paddling Puppeteer Glen Caradus, “Stepping Stone” presentation by the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre and the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters’ The Great Fish Migration and Bring Back the Salmon.
Member agencies of the festival’s organizing committee include Peterborough Utilities Group, Riverview Park and Zoo, City of Peterborough, GreenUP, Otonabee Conservation, Trent University, Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board, Peterborough Northumberland Clarington Catholic District School Board and Wayne Stiver.
The festival also offers an array of online resources at pcwf.net for school classes that were unable to register.
Comments