Welcome-old

The Festival this year will be May 28th and May 29th, 2024. We’re looking forward to being live and in-person at the Riverview Park and Zoo! Registration opens Monday January 15th @ noon!

Peterborough Children’s Water Festival ’23

A Splashing Success!

“The Water Festival was an amazing day of learning all about water and the importance of conservation. I’ve been attending for years now and it’s always a great day filled with great hands on learning opportunities for the students!”

JP Chénier, Teacher

2023 marked the 21st Anniversary of the Peterborough Children’s Water Festival (PCWF) and our triumphant return to a LIVE festival at the Peterborough Riverview Park and Zoo on May 30^th and 31^st.

This year 1300 students in grades 2 to 5 from 24 local schools attended the festival, chaperoned by 311 teachers and parents. In 2002, the PCWF took root and to date 30,388 elementary students and 6,684 teachers and parent helpers have attended the Peterborough Children’s Water Festival to celebrate water and their relationship with it.

Volunteers from our partner organizations, community, and local high schools are essential to the success of the PCWF. Each year volunteers dedicate their time, energy and skills to the PCWF and to the water related messages that we share. In 2019 the festival continued to welcome many volunteers returning to the Festival ready to share water messages they once experienced at the PCWF as young students. This year we also welcomed volunteers from 11 community organizations and five local high schools. Overall, 120 high school students worked at 36 activity centres to deliver water related messages, and over 50 community volunteers helped to ensure things ran smoothly – that’s more than 1500 hours of volunteer time over two days!

Thank you Nogojiwanong for your support of Water Education!

Want to start your year off with #WaterWednesday resources? Sing along to our virtual festival theme song and enjoy Wonderful resources from the 2021-22 Water Wednesday seasons live Here and Wonders of Water archives live here! Locally focused and fun water education for your class.

About Us

The Peterborough Children’s Water Festival (PCWF) is a community event for children in Grade 2 to 5. The PCWF provides students with the opportunity to discover the importance and diversity of water.

The PCWF works in partnership with educators, water quality and quantity specialists, community volunteers, conservation groups, industry and government to create a festival full of activities that are educational and fun for children in grades 2 to 5. Read our 2021 Newsletter

Learning about Benthic Macroinvertebrates

Learning how to ID Benthic Macroinvertebrates

Check out the Highlights from our first 18 years of Water Education! More photos coming soon!

Support

The Peterborough Children’s Water Festival has been a successful educational event for 21 years thanks to the support of our community partners and local businesses.

Supporters enable us to promote and deliver water education to hundreds of children in Peterborough and the Kawarthas region annually. Support the PCWF

Thanks to our Supporters!

Festival Supporters – $5,000+

Festival Patron – $2,500-$4,999

Festival Benefactor – $1,000-$2,499

Festival Friend – < $1,000

Grant and Emma Murphy

Herb Lang Drilling

Township of Selwyn

Wayne Stiver

In Kind Sponsorship

City of Peterborough

GreenUP

Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board

Otonabee Conservation

Peterborough Utilities Group

Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board

Riverview Park and Zoo

TRACKS

Trent University

We are enormously grateful for the financial and in-kind contributions of local sponsors that support our in-person festival!

Thank you to past and present sponsors who have supported immersive water education! We’re thinking of all of you in these unprecedented times!

Our 2024 Steering Committee are hard at work