New Jersey academy introduces teens to full water cycle

For five weeks this summer, a group of Newark high school students traded a traditional summer break for an immersive exploration of the water sector.

They learned everything from source water protection and treatment to distribution and stormwater management, and they walked away with five science credits toward their high school diploma.

The program was years in the making, thanks to leaders at the Newark (New Jersey) Department of Water and Sewer Utilities. They collaborated with the Newark Board of Education to create a curriculum that combined classroom instruction with field days and leadership development.

Called the Newark Watershed Science and Leadership Academy, the experience took 16 students through the full water cycle, which, in turn, exposed them to the breadth of careers in the water sector.

“It was so great, in the end, to see the kids very interested in the water industry,” said Skylar Reed, principal engineer at the Newark Department of Water and Sewer Utilities. “We had several of them ask for internship opportunities.”

The idea for the academy grew out of tours that the water department had been doing for almost a decade. Those tours are offered year-round for local sixth-graders, and in a day, students rotate among three groups to learn about water treatment from the perspective of operators, engineers, and scientists. The water department hosts 2,000 students annually “but it didn’t seem like enough,” Reed said.

Each week of the academy focuses on a different facet: regulatory compliance, source water protection, treatment, distribution, and stormwater. Two days are in the classroom, two are in the field, and Fridays are for leadership development — the elements of which align with the subject of the week. (For the week on regulatory compliance, for example, the leadership component is responsibility.)

Reed said the hopes for the academy are twofold: educate students about the complex processes beyond maintaining and delivering safe, reliable drinking water; and show them the array of career options in water.

“Everyone knows this is an aging industry,” said Reed, who is a 2023 graduate of the Transformative Water Leadership Academy. “We are trying to get ahead of the curve as best we can to funnel new employees and inspire new recruits.” Students came out of the program expressing interest in careers in forestry and chemistry, she added.

And Newark has 16 new water champions it didn’t have before.

“They always say that when you teach the kids, you teach their parents,” Reed said. “At the [end-of-program] banquet, parents told us their kids were talking about water conservation — telling them not to leave the water faucets on — so we also have an uptick in public water knowledge.”

The first year was such a success — even the mayor came and spoke — that Reed and her colleagues are already planning for next year. “The teachers are posting pictures and flyers in the halls,” she said. “They’re all pretty excited.”