The Haliburton-Muskoka-Kawartha Children’s Water Festival (HMKCWF) will celebrate it's 20th Anniversary in 2025, as an annual outdoor Fall event that informs and inspires elementary students of this region to become water stewards in their homes, classrooms and communities. Children have fun while visiting a variety of hands-on activity stations where they learn about all things water, while making ecological connections to the natural world around them. We are the premiere program of local charity, the Friends of Ecological and Environmental Learning.
Since 2012, we have also provided information, guidance and resources for Teachers to use in integrating engaging water stewardship lessons into their classes throughout the year. In 2021 we developed Water Week: an updated set of such resources and annually update recommended resource lists in our Teachers' Guides all available under the Teachers tab.
We are adapting our programs through the pandemic and climate change; in 2022 we revived our in-person Fall event with updated safety protocols and have started to develop and launch mobile programs; a series of water festival outdoor activities for families, such as storyboard walks at public parks and community events. We continue to combine experiential activities with messages relevant to youth's daily lives, through which they can 'soak up' knowledge on the properties, uses, connections and importance of water through these and our Waterheroes on-line programs.
Our programming has been offered free of charge since 2005, thanks to the generosity of volunteers, partner programs and sponsors. Please contact us for more information or to get involved!
Since 2005, the Haliburton-Muskoka-Kawartha Children’s Water Festival has inspired more than 16,800 elementary students to become water stewards. This year, we’re looking forward to celebrating some of the key volunteers, partner organizations and supporters who’ve made significant contributions over the past two decades. We’ll do this through our website, Facebook…
Thanks to more than 150 volunteers, 12 educating partners and a growing community of donors of funds and resources, we reached over 1000 elementary children and 200 teachers &/or parents with our hands-on water stewardship programs in 2024. Our ‘Year-End Report’ celebrates these connections in more detail. (click here to…
Our fantastic volunteers, donors, partners and participating schools and families came together to more than double the number of students attending our Children’s Water Festival this year.
We’re happy to share highlights of how our volunteers, program partners, financial and in-kind supporters together made a positive difference in 2023. Together we offered engaging, hands-on activities for children of the region inspiring present and future water stewardship. See this link for more details; https://hmkwaterfestival.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/2023-HMKCWF-Final-Report-short.pdf
