This World Water Day, we’re celebrating 20 years of the Haliburton-Muskoka-Kawartha Children’s Water Festival (HMK Children’s Water Festival) bringing fun, and hands-on learning about water, to more than 16,800 children, mostly through the main Children’s Water Festival at the Kinark Outdoor Centre (KOC). World Water Day is meant to inspire water stewardship actions, and the KOC is proud to partner with Haliburton-based charity Friends of Ecological and Environmental Learning (FEEL) to do so through the HMK Children’s Water Festival each year.
At the fall HMK Children’s Water Festival, approximately 800 elementary students from across the Trillium Lakelands District School Board (TLDSB) region attend with their teachers and parent volunteers each year. Centrally located within the TLDSB region, the Kinark Outdoor Centre is an ideal location that offers a variety of spaces and accessibility features. Children have fun while engaging in experiential learning by visiting interactive hands-on learning stations where they soak in valuable lessons about the importance of water, aquatic ecosystems, and shoreline ecosystems. In more recent years, the team has developed new climate change-related activities and the Water Heroes website, encouraging stewardship in follow-up to the festival.
The HMK Children’s Water Festival programs are launching a new Water Hero initiative on March 22 to celebrate World Water Day. The initiative encourages families, children, youth classes, and schools to send in their pledged or completed actions protecting or conserving water.
This year, the aim is to reach beyond the students who were able to attend the Water Festival last year and connect with more children who live in or visit the region. Families who have visited the KOC are encouraged to see the ideas posted on the website and send in what they did while visiting, or will do in the year ahead, to give back to nature’s water resources. Whether it is conserving water by taking shorter showers, reducing plastic use with reusable water bottles, or being mindful of what we flush down the toilet, we aim to celebrate all water-friendly choices.
The “Big Splash Contest” runs until Wednesday, April 30, 2025, and includes prizes donated by regional sponsors and certificates that are free to download. Families can learn more here where ideas can be found, and pledges and reports of Water Hero actions can be sent in.
We look forward to celebrating your reports of or pledges, for water-friendly choices later this Spring. Our actions can ripple out to make waves of change with others by sharing them.
What is World Water Day?
World Water Day celebrates water and inspires action to tackle the global water crisis. A core focus of World Water Day is to support the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6: water and sanitation for all by 2030.
World Water Day is held annually on March 22.
Some notes on World Water Day from the staff at the KOC:
We manage our own water system on site and encourage all visitors to the centre to bring refillable water bottles. We have water stations at various locations throughout the site, allowing visitors to make water-friendly choices!
Kinark Outdoor Centre has also been a part of the HMK Children’s Water Festival for many years. “It’s always such a good time for all the kids and volunteers.” Fahima, Outdoor Program Facilitator, Kinark Outdoor Centre reflects on her time at Kinark helping with the festival, “I really love that the Water Festival brings so much joy to everybody, including myself!”
Content written in partnership with Kara Mitchell, Haliburton-Muskoka-Kawartha Children’s Water Festival Coordinator
