Ever wondered where your #1 and #2 went after you flushed? And what exactly do we do with all those wastes? Join EarthEcho and the South Cross Bayou Advanced Water Reclamation Facility as we go behind the scenes of Pinellas County’s largest wastewater treatment facility to learn about how we recover our favorite waste, a solid #2, and make it into a safe product that can be used as a fertilizer to grow crops. With streaming footage from inside our egg-shaped digesters to our fertilizer factory, we’ll give you a firsthand look at how science, technology, and engineering allow us to protect human health and keep our waterways clean from “poo-lution!”

Protecting the health of our aquatic ecosystems and access to clean water is one of the greatest global challenges of our time. As Matt Damon said in the film Brave Blue World, “How lucky are we that we’re the ones who get to solve this?” Join Philippe Cousteau and EarthEcho International as we host a speaker panel of innovators and change-makers to engage with students across the world as we explore solutions to the global water crisis and connect youth to their local bodies of water through the EarthEcho Water Challenge. This event will be moderated by EarthEcho Water Challenge Ambassador Ivanya Johnson.

Audit your water use at home so you can Know Your Flow! Adapted from the Water Planet Challenge Know Your Flow Action Guide, this audit tool is a guide for youth to evaluate their home water use.

Join EarthEcho and Pinellas County Utilities as we learn more about wastewater treatment in Florida. Explore the ins and outs of wastewater management including how debris chemicals, nutrients, and bacteria are removed from water and more!

Join EarthEcho International and 2017 EarthEcho Expeditions Fellow, Mr. Jim Trogdon, and Mr. Paul Brentlinger, CEO of CropKing Inc as we learn all about aquaponics.

In this curricular guide, middle school students learn about an alternative farming technique that addresses water use in agricultural farming, the environmental impacts of fish farms, and urban development and population growth. This guide promotes 21st-century skills by engaging students in the history of aquaponics through various texts; improving their communication skills by explaining how an aquaponics system works; and engineering your own classroom aquaponics unit through an interactive design challenge!

Far more of our freshwater is stored underground as groundwater than is in our lakes, rivers, and streams. Philippe Cousteau travels to the Orange County Water District in Fountain Valley, CA,to meet with engineer Sandy Scott Roberts, who explains how they manage and use the freshwater from this surprising underground source.

Participating in this hands-on lesson, students in grades 6-8 will lead each other through the integration and application of a real-life situation. This lesson provides a PowerPoint and worksheets to help students understand precision agriculture and its use of geographic information systems to help farmers use a sustainable growing method. Students will then integrate their knowledge and skills to create their own mini irrigation system.