Dalton E. Tucker Primary’s Trip to the Water Explorer International Conference

Isaiah Williams (8 years old) and Lakai Drummond (9 years old) along with Ms Shanda Simmons, Deputy Principal and Mrs Moira Daniels, para-educator attended the Water Explorer International Conference in London, England.

The one-and-a-half-day conference held from October 24-25 was the prize for Dalton E. Tucker Primary being the local Water Explorer winners last school year.

Both Isaiah and Lakai enjoyed meeting students from different countries and working alongside them to develop a Water Explorer theme song in which each country had to write two lines that represented their own country as well as to learn the chorus.

The chorus: “We are, we are Water Explorers, saving water making every drop count.”

Bermuda’s two lines were: “Water all around us, fresh from the rain, salty from the sea, protect the water for you and me.”

Some children sang their parts in their native language, so we didn’t know what they said, but we knew it was about saving water.

We also enjoyed bunting with the students where everyone had to design two bunts that represented their country and water and we hung all the countries together and put them on display when we met at the HSBC building for the presentations and awards.

While we were at the HSBC building the children were interviewed and asked to talk about how we collect and use water in our home countries. We talked about how important rain is to Bermuda and we described our roof tops and how we catch water.

We really enjoyed doing the activities at the HSBC building.

Both boys really enjoyed the time spent being able to look through the microscopes at the different types of algae. They also enjoyed learning about how the crayfish from the United States are coming to England and taking over the local crayfish. Isaiah said it was like what is happening in Bermuda with the lionfish.

Lakai said what he found most interesting is that each year the amount of plastic that is wasted equals the weight of 150 million elephants.

Other highlights of the trip were all the conference participants’ visit to the London Eye and the Sea Life Aquarium.

Both Lakai and Isaiah said they wish more students could have travelled to the conference and experienced meeting students from around the world and taking part in the conference activities.

Now that they are home they will be encouraging their family and friends to do more to save water such as using grey water to water their plants, turning off the taps when washing their hands and cleaning their teeth and at school encouraging the students not to waste water at the water fountain.

They look forward to Dalton E. Tucker Primary continuing the Water Explorer programme this school year.