A community of educators empowering students to take climate action
Water Explorer is a fun educational programme that encourages students aged 8-14 in all over the world to take bold and powerful action to save our precious water through engaging water saving Missions.
Whether you are a small club or hoping to run a whole school project, Water Explorer’s challenges can be adapted to best fit your learning objectives and the time you have available. All of the challenges are fully resourced and student-led, so the programme requires very little planning.
Whether you’re looking for a way to find out more about water, tackle an SDG, or simply have some fun, dive into the water saving Missions. All you need is a group of young people and a group leader to run the sessions. We recommend Water Explorer to school classes, year groups, Scouts Brownies, Cubs and Guides, Eco-clubs, faith groups, after-school groups, and everything else in between!
Water Explorer's Missions and Challenges empower students to connect with and work towards the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In particular it focusses on:
Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation
Aim: to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
Goal 6 also includes targets to improve education around healthy hygiene habits, reduce contamination in water sources, improve the way that we use water, and protect and restore our water-related ecosystems like wetlands and rivers.
Water Explorer's wide range of acitivties support young people to tackle different aspects of Goal 6, from reducing water waste in their school to monitoring the health of a local river.
Goal 12
Sustainable consumption and production patterns
Try growing your own, swapping unwanted items or upcycling old clothes
Goal 15
Protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of ecosystems on land.
Build your own wetland or investigate farming.
Goal 13
Take urgent action to combat climate change.
Investigate how our water use impacts the climate.
Goal 4
Ensure inclusive and equal quality education for all.
Consider how water access impacts learning.
Goal 3
Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.
Consider how everyone's health is affected by water.
Goal 9
Infastructure, sustainable industrialization, and innovation.
Learn to innovate and solve watery problems.
Goal 5
Achieve gender equality.
Consider how water supply changes affect women and girls.
Remaining SDGs
Water Explorer can be used to introduce young people to the SDGs, and can act as a springboard for futher engagement with all 17 of the goals.
Water Explorers from more than 3000 teams in 12 countries have completed Challenges and took action to save water. Here are just a few of the amazing things they have achieved so far...
Feeling inspired? Read more about action being taken by our innovative teams on our case studies page.
”It’s a way of empowering children in their learning and giving learning a purpose. It’s enjoyable, and supports the curriculum in many areas”
Teacher, Nafferton Primary School, UK
Values act as a kind of internal compass guiding us through our lives, shaping the way we see, feel, and hear the world. Certain values are known to promote the sorts of attitudes and behaviours associated with living sustainably and it’s widely recognised that increasing the importance that young people attribute to these values has huge potential in getting them to live and behave more sustainably.
Using the internationally recognised Schwartz value theory, the Water Explorer programme measured how the importance attributed to different values changes for the young people participating in Water Explorer.
This graph shows the importance young people attributed to Schwartz's 10 universal values before & after participating in Water Explorer. Overall, we see a promising increase in the importance attributed to values like universalism, benevolence, and self-direction, and a reduction in values like power and conformity.
”Being a Water Explorer means making change happen.”
Student, Felsted Preparatory School, UK
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All the best,
The Transform Our World team
All content © 2024 Global Action Plan, except for partner content which belongs to the linked organisations. Global Action Plan co-ordinates Transform Our World and is a charity registered in England and Wales number 1026148, and in Scotland number SC041260. Tel: 0204 566 9904