Eagle River Coalition: Celebrating water and education at the Eagle River Water Festival
In mid-September, amid an especially tumultuous week for our local students, approximately 330 fifth-graders gathered from local schools to learn together about their local rivers.
The Eagle River Water Festival, a much-loved annual favorite among kids from all over Eagle County, is not an easy feat to pull off and requires careful planning and coordination with 13 schools, 23 presenters from agencies, businesses, and organizations, and five volunteers.
Business and foundation-based supporters, including Holy Cross Energy and funding from Hispanic Access Fund, Xcel Energy, Edwards Metro District, Western Community Foundation and Exploremos, make the event possible at no cost to schools. We also work with interpreters so that all kids can fully participate, whether they speak Spanish or English.
Despite the unforeseen challenges that arose due to traffic congestion that Friday morning, the event was held, with special credit due to the resilience, creativity, and collaboration of the presenters, volunteers and participants who took part. Although all presenters and schools couldn’t join the event, we saw a new level of adaptability and leadership arise and the feedback we’ve received from the kids show that they learned a lot and emerged empowered to protect our rivers.
We, the Eagle River Coalition staff, were inspired by the kids and want to share some of the experiences they had during the Eagle River Water Festival.
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At the Colorado Parks and Wildlife station, kids got their wiggles out playing food web tag with biologist Jen Prusse with Eagle-Holy Cross Ranger District. Laura Bohannan, from the Eagle County Conservation District, taught students about erosion at a water table event. We were excited that folks from the local Vail Mountain Rescue Group participated, providing takeaways about river safety and river rescue basics.
Guides from Vail Valley Anglers and representatives from the local Trout Unlimited Chapter gave kids the chance to try their hand at casting, identifying macroinvertebrates, and learning about local fish species. We had kids peering through microscopes at a station led by Lanny Ellis, kids getting artistic and expressing their relationship with rivers through watercolor at stations led by the Eagle River Coalition and Exploremos, and kids listening to books about water by local library district staff. The Eagle River Water & Sanitation District was present, offering information about water treatment systems.
As the day wrapped up, we checked in with the kids to hear about their experiences at the Water Festival, and students expressed that they learned what the term “watershed” means, water safety basics, how complicated water rights and water law can be in our region and the importance of riparian habitats.
We want to extend our sincere thanks to everyone involved with all of our educational events and workshops, especially the collaborations behind the Eagle River Water Festival. What a wonderful community, with students who showed up ready to learn, school teachers who advocate for their kids to be present and the many dedicated presenters who helped to teach Eagle County’s fifth graders all about water.
To learn more and get involved in water education, river advocacy and volunteer projects, visit EagleRiverCO.org.
