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Millersville University’s Watershed Education Training Institute (WETi) was named a grant recipient of the 2020 Clean Water Fund by Lancaster Clean Water Partners earlier this fall.
MU has long done important work, training and education through WETI, thanks in large part to the herculean efforts of Dr. John Wallace and Dr. Nanette Dietrich, who use the institute to educate and teach MU students about the importance of helping to conserve water and improve the management and maintenance of clean water throughout the county.
These funds will be used to provide pre-service student teachers with a meaningful watershed education experience, focusing on issues that impact local watersheds. “What we’ve been doing with WETi is providing programs, [put on by MU students] for primary and secondary age school students, as well as their teachers,” explains Wallace. “We want to train watershed ambassadors.”
Wallace and Deitrich also have a keen interest in educating future teachers on the importance of treating storm water and are excited for the possibilities this grant affords them. “This grant will allow WETi to create programming that will provide hands-on experiential learning opportunities for student teachers on various aspects of water conservation, opportunities to interact with water professionals at local, regional and national levels and hence expand their own professional network and perhaps most important, ideas to develop their own curricula to teach watershed conservation and stormwater management with their students in the years to come,” explains Wallace.
While the concept of water conservation certainly isn’t a particularly splashy topic (pun very much intended), Wallace is adamant that it is of the utmost importance. “Water is THE most important resource on the planet,” he explains solemnly. “I have lived in places where it is rationed, where we did not have it for days on end – clean water is priceless. This country and many others have taken clean water for granted – until it is no longer available.”
Here’s what Wallace says he wants everyone to know about water conservation: “I want them to know that water is LIFE and just as we do whatever we can to protect, conserve, preserve and extend our own lives, so we must do for water.”
Also named as grantees are Donegal Trout Unlimited, Salisbury Township and West Lampeter Township.
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