Why are GWI and others concerned with providing sustainable systems solutions for communities facing water resource challenges? “It is because all your health come from clean water” said Gardner Watkins, a high school teacher in Environmental and Applied Environmental Science at Dublin High School. Watkins was speaking during  the 2016 Global Teacher Water Security Seminar that was organized by Ohio State University’s Office of International Affairs in collaboration with the School of Earth Sciences. During the seminar, high school and middle school teachers from Ohio had a chance to learn about water security issues and their impact on people’s livelihoods.

Attendees felt that water security is not the responsibility of hydrologists or chemists alone, it is everyone’s responsibility regardless of the area of specialization.  Therefore, it is important to train young people on these issues so that they are better equipped to protect water resources. “It is high time our education system shifted its focus and started teaching students to learn and understand the relationships that exist between and among different disciplines so that they take a systems approach when dealing with various problems facing the world today,” said one of the participants during the seminar.

Teachers finished the workshop by sharing plans for integrating water resources into their classrooms in the coming years.