Inside Riverside Public Utilities’ School Education Program
Published: 02/13/2019
Since 2001, Riverside Public Utilities’ School Education Program has provided a unique, hands-on experience for children in the elementary grades. The program serves more than 45 public elementary schools and 30 private schools in Riverside’s service area. The state mandated charges collected on your utility bill pay for the programs designed to align with next generation state curriculum standards, while promoting both energy and water conservation and the science behind it.
Kids learn about how electric current works, the water cycle from source to tap, renewable wind energy and utility careers. The reason this program is so special is the creative methods used to teach these topics. The teachers love it too because education kits are left behind with more activities to extend their lessons.
Since 2012 alone, Education Coordinator Sharon Gutierrez and her assistant, Damaris Velez, have visited more than 60,000 students in their classrooms. Each day she brings along creative ways of teaching science that are interactive, age-appropriate, and most of all, fun.
Through the program kids can learn:
• How to build a wind energy turbine with straws
• How to create an electric circuit with wires and batteries
• How to test water for safety
• About how pollution affects the watershed by polluting your own miniature model
• What utility linemen do by meeting real linemen
• How to save energy and water
• How electric currents are produced by using hula hoops.
For more information about the Riverside Public Utilities School Education Program, visit RiversidePublicUtilities.com/Education or call (951) 826-5485
Find more stories about the City of Riverside in the latest edition of Explore Magazine