Water Literacy

A shared vision for K–12 environmental education

Reports published in 2021

Project Description

In January 2020, Ripple Effect convened a consortium of goal-aligned experts in Southeast Louisiana to begin advancing a new shared vision: water literacy. Through a series of workshops, teacher focus groups, and interviews with researchers, practitioners, and community experts, the group developed shared goals and identified opportunities for deepening connections between environmental research, community needs, and K–12 formal and informal education.

Over 70 individuals contributed their perspective to this effort, and the result is a moving and hopeful picture of environmental education in Louisiana.

As the intellectual foundation for all of Ripple Effect’s subsequent projects, the findings of this report will be applied practically at different scales, from science curriculum taught in Title 1 schools to inter-organizational collaboration across Southeast Louisiana.

Ripple Effect Director of Impact, Brooke Sprague, leading a workshop during the interpretive planning process in New Orleans.
Our next generation of “water literate leaders” will be future hydrologists, engineers, climate scientists, ecologists, urban planners, designers, architects, educators, or public policy experts.
We have to recognize that we can’t keep living this way. We have to find a balance. Regenerative, reciprocal relationships are at the core of that. I don’t know how to exactly get there, but more and more, I believe that has to be the primary goal.
Monique Verdin, Artist and Storyteller, director of the Land Memory Bank and Seed Exchange, former member of the United Houma Nation Tribal Council
It’s important for students to understand that everything works in a system. You have to figure out how you maneuver either in it or out of it to effect change.
Cheryl Austin, Executive Director, Greater Tremé Consortium
Most other coasts are full of people that come from far away. But in Louisiana, we have families that have been here 200 or 300 years, and sometimes even much longer. So there's this built up knowledge and that's becoming rare, and it's beautifully unique in Louisiana.
Dr. Gary LaFleur, PhD, R.E. Miller Endowed Professor of Honors Studies, Professor, Nicholls State University
Our water infrastructure, our way of dealing with flood projects et cetera, are all based on this premise: If something has been happening the same way for a hundred years, it's probably going to be the same in the next hundred years. We're beginning to see that that's not the case. So how do you change an entire mentality that has been built around this idea that things are predictable? The driver of this shift away from stationarity is climate change.
Michael Hopkins, PhD, Coastal Program Director, Pontchartrain Conservancy

What is water literacy?

Water literacy is the systematic collection and sharing of knowledge, skills, and ethical grounding that all individuals and communities need to successfully adapt to changing hydrologic conditions. It encompasses the environmental, economic, and social dimensions of human connections to water, water infrastructure, and aquatic ecosystems.

- Consists of the knowledge, skills, and ethical grounding necessary to successfully adapt to changing hydrologic conditions.
- Encompasses the environmental, economic, and social dimensions of human connections to water.
- Draws from science, the humanities, social science, and community expertise to define and address water issues.
- Occurs in formal and informal contexts across the human developmental lifespan.
- Values both traditional ecological knowledge and Western modern science.
- Is rooted in a socioecological context in which human beings and nature are inextricably intertwined.
- Is inherently local, reflecting the ecologies, social histories, and economies of specific geographic regions.