Project WET School of the Year Hosts Water Festival

Last year Armuchee Elementary School in Floyd County was named Project WET (Water Education for Teachers) School of the Year and was awarded $3,000 to host a Water Festival.  The Water Festival for 3rd, 4th and 5th graders was held on September 15th. The entire school was decorated with water related subjects including water droplets that dangled from the ceiling.

The ceremony opened with performances by the students including a water song and pledge. The Mayor of Rome read a proclamation declaring Armuchee Elementary as the Georgia Project Wet School of the Year and the ceremony ended with a performance from “Mama Bass and the Mudsliders.” 

Following the opening ceremony, the students rotated through 30-minute lessons and learning activities. The planned lessons included: The Enviroscape, taught by Petey Giroux, state coordinator for Project WET; Water Quality and Conservation, taught by Jennifer Odom and Leslie Nelson of the Rome NRCS Field Office; The Ground Water Module, taught by Bob Ringer; The Incredible Journey - Flooding in Rome, taught by a representative of the Rome Area History Museum; Canoeing & Water Safety, taught by Mark Lamade from Lock and Dam Park; Sturgeon Tank, by Gary Beisser of GA Fisheries in Calhoun; Stream Monitoring, taught by Eric Lindberg; and Life of a Water Droplet, taught by Joe Cook from Coosa River Basin Initiative; Non-game Endangered Species, taught by Kim Kilgore; and Recycling, taught by Marta Turner, Rome/Floyd Recycling Center. 

The Project WET award was presented to Armuchee Elementary at the Environmental Education Alliance of Georgia Conference on March 18, 2006 in Atlanta. Project WET is environmental education involving water and the need to preserve and protect it.  

The environmental academic focus at Armuchee for the last two years has been on water preservation with activities including a luncheon to help educate the community on the Coosa Watershed, students monitoring the water quality of the school stream, students making 50 rain barrels to distribute to the community and students and teachers building a Three Rivers Garden on the campus.

The teachers and staff are to be commended for making learning about water and the importance of conserving it so much fun! The students were able to recite the path of the brook that runs behind their school all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. They said that the school is next to Armuchee Brook, which leads into Armuchee Creek, which then leads into the Oostanaula River, where it eventually joins with the Etowah River, to become the Coosa River. The Coosa River becomes the Alabama River, which then becomes the Mobile River, which finally empties into the Gulf of Mexico.

Needless to say, we were very impressed with their knowledge!

< Back to ...