Virginia utility encourages future water stewards with H2Go Kids

Prince William Water in Woodbridge, Virginia, created H2Go Kids to encourage students and educators to protect water resources and to nurture a better water stewardship ethic among the next generation.

“For more than a decade, Prince William Water has offered a robust community and educational outreach program,” said Michelle Miranda, community engagement manager at Prince William Water. “Engagement with our classroom program, known as H2Go Kids, has steadily increased and now reaches more than 10,000 students every year.” 

The recent COVID-19 pandemic brought significant challenges and changes to the program. 

“Our outreach team was not able to travel to classrooms and connect with students in-person, stopping our work in its tracks,” Miranda said. “This challenge gave us an incredible opportunity to reinvent the wheel!” 

In place of in-person programming, the utility created video recordings of its classroom lessons, developed companion activity sheets for each lesson plan, and established the H2Go Kids webpage, which hosts the videos and activities.  

“All of these H2Go Kids resources are free and accessible to anyone interested in knowing more about the world of water,” Miranda said. 

Vibrant characters engage students 

The H2Go Kids program features characters such as Drip and Drop to engage young learners. 

Drip stars in materials aimed at students in grades K-3 and is often found exploring the water cycle, learning about water conservation, and discovering the importance of clean water. Drop appears in materials geared toward students in grades 4-6 and delves into more complex topics like water treatment and watershed protection. 

“The first characters, Drip and Drop, were initially doodles made real by our graphic design team,” Miranda said. “There is now an entire water drop family, all with their own names, looks and depicting a few of the many careers in the water industry.” 

The program aligns with Virginia’s Science Standards of Learning, covering environmental topics such as water treatment, pollution prevention, and the water cycle through interactive games, experiments, and videos. Lesson plans include erosion and aquifer models and story-based lessons like “The Big Stink,” which explains how water sources can become polluted. 

“Through the H2Go Kids platform, we can reach more people and be in more classrooms and more homes than we ever could before,” Miranda said. “We are working to build an ever-evolving educational resource for all ages, pulling big water industry topics into a fun and accessible space.”