The Festival

It’s All About Water! The Haliburton-Muskoka-Kawartha Children’s Water Festival is an event that motivates students to become water stewards in their homes, classroom and community. By combining hands-on interactive activities with messages relevant to their daily lives, students ‘soak up’ knowledge on the properties, uses, connections and importance of water. With this knowledge, students become aware of the value of conserving and protecting water.

Through a series of 40-50 interactive activity centres, students in grades 4 to 6  explore the following concepts:

• Water Conservation – the responsible use of water in our daily lives
• Water Attitudes – historical and present day uses and attitudes toward water
• Water Technology – how water is treated, stored and distributed throughout the community
• Water & Watershed Protection – the interdependence of ground and surface water, soil, plants, animals and people and positive steps people can take to keep water clean and protect vital ecosystems of our shared Watersheds.
• Water Science – the water cycle, surface and groundwater flow, watersheds and aquatic environments

The learning stations are designed to be hands-on, stimulating and fun, encouraging further understanding of water concepts taught through the school curriculum.  Many of them are animated by post and secondary students gaining experiential learning in environmental education leadership.

Thank you to all who help bring this event to our youth and to all the principals, teachers and parents who recognize its importance! Together we are making a splash!

2023 Fall Festival @ Kinark

Our main event, the Fall Festival was held on Thursday, October 5th at the Kinark Outdoor Centre.  Nine schools from the Trillium Lakelands District School Board (TLDSB) as well as families with Haliburton’s Home School network attended.  Kinark once again offered a great location for this outdoor event in a central location to the TLDSB region, experienced staff support and greater accessibility than other outdoor locations and we augmented with a wheelchair accessible porta potty this year.

1st Shoreline HMK Childrens Water Festival

In July 2024, we offered our first ever ‘mini’ Children’s Water Festival in partnership with a Lake Association ~ the Kushog Lake Property Owners Association (KLPOA).  Together with their volunteer members, we offered 6 different activity centres to families who live, cottage, or were visiting the lake.  This experience has offered a template to build on through future partnerships with other Lake Associations.

More detail about 2023 HMK Childrens Water Festivals and online programs and resources we offer year round can be found in our 2023 HMKCWF Final Report.

2022 Festival

After 2 pandemic years of in-person festivals not being able to run, we happily rejuvenated this outdoor Fall event on September 27th, 2022 at Kinark Outdoor Centre once again.

At the HMK Children’s Water Festival, TLDSB elementary students, staff and parent volunteers joined Trent University and Secondary students as well as community members and 10 partnering organizations to share outdoor, experiential learning about water stewardship, ecosystems and climate change.

The 2022 Children’s Water Festival report is now available. HMKCWF Final Report 2022