More than 150 students from Kimball Elementary School (Washington, D.C.), Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community Day School (Pikesville, Md.), and Hebrew Day School (Silver Spring, Md.) joined the more than 50,000 people internationally that are anticipated to have participated in the 2008 WWMD program.  

A group of local Girl Scouts gather at an educational exhibit hosted by the U.S. Coast Guard on Sept. 18.

More than 100 participants gathered for this year’s WWMD event, which began with a speech by Water Environment Federation (Alexandria, Va.) President Adam Zabinski.

U.S. EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water Benjamin H. Grumbles attended and spoke at the kick-off event.

During the WWMD event, participating children were shown how to test the water for temperature, acidity, clarity, and dissolved oxygen.

Students and adults visited the educational exhibit booths set up by participating organizations such as the Naturalist Audubon Society (Chevy Chase, Md.) and the Potomac Conservancy (Silver Spring, Md).

A boy studies a bug collected from the local waterways as part of one of the exhibits at WWMD in Washington, D.C.

Students visited educational and interactive displays, were asked questions based on presentations at each exhibit, and were given a sticker for their passports with each correctly answered question. A full passport was good for a World Water Monitoring T-shirt at the kick-off event.

A group of students gather around an EnviroScape watershed model at a display hosted by the Girl Scouts of the Nation’s Capital.

A group of Kimball Elementary students fill their WWMD testing kit with water from the Potomac River.

Students examine the temperature of the water collected from the Potomac River on Sept. 18.

Students collect samples of water from the Potomac River at Hains Point, Washington, D.C.

Officer Snook from the U.S. Coat Guard Sea Partners Campaign and The Officer Snook Water Pollution Program and Woodsy the Owl from the U.S. Forest service visited with children at the event.