Detailed Festival Information:
Through the SMAC grant in 2005, the Project began the Shawnee Mission Park Water Festival.
Because of previous events, Hillsdale Water Quality Project staff was able to recruit volunteers, presenters and supplies to host the 2005 Shawnee Mission Park Water Festival in only two weeks - a major accomplishment for us. Because of the Projects partnerships, volunteers and sponsors, we are able to host events such as this. The Projects proven record of good events helps the recruitment process and overall success of the event.
- Always plan for scheduling problems ahead of time:
- Presenters may have problems stretching their activity for the time period, buses being late, presenters being late.
- Make back-up plans before the problems happen.
- Always have break times for the presenters to walk around and see the other activities and to network with the other presenters.
- Have the students and teachers use the event as part of the curriculum in the classroom. This has been done in our event as: questions they have to answer on activities, writing responses after the event, completing evaluations for the presenters on the events (then provide these comments to the presenters), write about the event and what the activities were they participated in or what they learned from each presenter; and provide presentations about the event to other students who were not in their group and may not have seen each of the activities. This way they become the teachers.