Pittsburgh, PA… While families are stuck at home and teachers are transitioning to online classrooms, finding engaging materials to keep young minds active is a growing challenge.

To ease the burden, the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority has created an online resource for kids and young adults that makes learning about water fun and intriguing. Parents and teachers are encouraged to check out the page to see how you can incorporate these activities into your home or classroom.

“Water is a fascinating subject. We don’t always take the time to learn about the source of our drinking water or the impact that stormwater has on our rivers, streams, and neighborhoods,” stated Robert Weimar, executive director of the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority. “These activities provide an overview of many water challenges we are trying to address in Pittsburgh.”

The water educational activities are a combination of materials sourced from organizations focused on expanding awareness about water and improving the environment. You can explore free online water games from www.DiscoverWater.org and test your water sense and knowledge about pollution with activities produced by the Environmental Protection Agency. Also included are experiments that you can do with common household materials and by embarking upon a scavenger hunt in your backyard.

The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority is beginning to create activities and videos that help to describe local stormwater challenges. If you’ve stopped by one of our tables at a community event or the Carnegie Science Center, then you are already familiar with this experiment. Gather Legos, sponges, a paint tray, and some water. Pour the water over the paint tray to see how roads, sidewalks, buildings, lawns, parks, trees, and green spaces contribute to our ability to manage local rainfall.

We are excited to share these educational activities with Pittsburgh’s youth and educators. They demonstrate the importance of water and the steps we all can take to protect this critical resource. With only 0.3 percent of the total volume of water on Earth usable by humans, we must all become good stewards of our water supply locally and around the globe.