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KnowYourH2O Education Outreach History

The KnowYourH2O Program has roots that go back to the mid-1980s. When Mr. Brian Oram was an undergraduate student at Wilkes College, he did a work-study program with the Water Quality Laboratory in the Earth and Environmental Science Department and completed an internship with one of the first watershed organizations in Pennsylvania, i.e., the Susquehanna River Tri-State Association. The main purpose of this initial work for the  Susquehanna River Tri-State Association was to help educate and inform citizens about environmental issues and water quality monitoring and testing. Not to create watchdogs or advocates, but to make informed educated leaders and communicators.

Because a high percentage of the region relied on a combination of private wells and a central community water system, the goal of this work was to develop education outreach and water testing programs for private well owners. Additionally, the program addressed issues related to Giardiasis and the use of a multiple barrier approach to drinking water protection and monitoring for community water systems that later evolved into the Center for Environmental Quality and the Water-research.net portal. The Water-research.net portal evolved into KnowYourH2O.com.

Through outreach efforts with groups like Ecologia (ECOlogists Linked for Organizing Grassroots Initiatives and Action), we worked on grassroots watershed and environmental stewardship efforts in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Central Europe, China, and India.  

This education outreach continues and we are currently active in multiple public and community outreach efforts. The KnowYourH2O portal focuses on indoor and outdoor water quality and environmental issues. The Team is not a watchdog, advocacy group, or trying to create social/environmental justice warriors. Instead, the team is composed of fact-based professionals and scientists.

For Indoor issues, the main focus is healthy homes and healthy drinking water and we provide outreach to private well owners, grassroots citizens groups, environmental health professionals, and water professionals.  

Our Outdoor focus is on timely environmental issues and providing tools for citizen scientists, environmental educators, and watershed monitoring programs.