FEATURES:

Goals:
Experience the water cycle as a drop of water.
Learn to keep water clean through simple activities.
Inspire stewardship of natural resources.
Act to support clean water initiatives.

Overview
Water's Extreme Journey transforms the visitor into a drop of water entering a watershed, an area of land where water drains and collects into a shared reservoir. As visitors will discover, a watershed can be right in their own neighborhood, or as big as the Rocky Mountain region! To explore the exhibition watershed, visitors voyage through rivers, lakes, wetlands, and even their homes, eventually reaching the healthy ocean. Sound easy? Water drops face many hurdles as they interact with humans. Does the farm they encounter use pesticides? Did someone get messy changing their oil, or flush prescription drugs down the toilet? Clean choices keep our drops healthy and moving toward a clean ocean. Dirty choices send our drops down the urban storm drain to the unhealthy ocean, where they evaporate, condensate, and precipitate for another try.

Why Water?
Water is among the hottest conservation topics in the news today, and Americans rank water pollution as the number one environmental concern facing the country. Water's Extreme Journey is a front line effort to empower millions of people with the knowledge to create a positive, immediate impact through action.

It's Local/ Es Local
Water's Extreme Journey presents opportunities for local messaging through programming: The exhibition is also translated into Spanish to help reach more visitors.

Local Watershed Experience
Shed some light on your watershed! An interactive model and bird's-eye view of a small town teaches visitors to explore the various ways that everyday actions impact our communal waters. Identify streets and buildings as community landmarks, bring regional water experts to talk about how local pollutants affect the watershed, and point to local actions within the neighborhood.

Art In Action
Write a letter, draw a picture, make a difference! However you express yourself, you can experience the value of being an involved citizen as you commit to clean water. Water's Extreme Journey will deliver letters and paintings to regional political figures in support of clean water initiatives, creating an immediate impact that visitors enjoy and remember.

Giant Community Mosaic
Be a piece of the big picture! Using imagination, visitors create one of over 600 mosaic tiles that combine to make a large-scale, beautiful work of art. The Wyland-designed Watershed Mosaic reinforces the power of community coming together for a common goal.

Water's Core Curriculum
Water's Extreme Journey comes with a fully developed water curriculum that adheres to National Art and Science Education Standards. Each lesson includes an activity, and is designed to be flexible and adapted for grades K-8. Students will experiment with and study the different properties of water, conduct scientific experiments, explore ecosystems, and learn to become stewards of the environment. This curriculum is appropriate for schools, and formal and informal learning institutions.

Measurable Success
When visitors commit to change, they want to see results. And so do host institutions! In Water's Extreme Journey, a touch-screen media kiosk offers simple ways to change habits, and to pledge to keep community water clean. Visitor pledges are logged and recorded by the Commitment Kiosk to tally collective positive impact on the local watershed. The results are then delivered to government officials in support of clean water. Totals also can be used to demonstrate the value of the exhibition and its message to local press, board members, and sponsors.

Interactives
Everyone likes to get in on the action, which is why we at Minotaur Mazes build each exhibition so that visitors can interact with and impact their environment. It helps visitors retain and remember information. Plus, it's a lot of fun!

Zipline
24-feet of fun as you turn into water, and then drop into the watershed...literally.

Water Cycle Puzzle
If you were a raindrop, where might you go? Complete the water cycle puzzle and send water on a journey into a whale, onto a leaf, or down a drain. It's up to you!

Mirror
Image isn't everything, but it sure can help you think about how you'd look like a water drop! Get into character for your journey through the maze.

Dodge Pollution
Get ready, raindrops... humans ahead! Five spinning impact wheels simulate interaction between humans and water in five categories: litter, toxins, agriculture, development, and seafood. Get through all impact points and stay clean to reach the healthy ocean. Don't worry if you get dirty - you can go through the maze again and make cleaner choices.

Videos
Learn new ideas about how we think about water through creative media, showing the power of every individual to make a significant difference.

Recycle vs. Trash
Try this heavy lifting - the average U.S. citizen throws out 28 pounds of garbage each week! But after you recycle and compost, you may feel a big difference...

How Much Water?
Nearly 70% of the earth is covered by water and less than 1% is available for drinking. How can this be true? Investigate answers by comparing all the types of water on Earth.

Clean Water Commitment
Each of us has the power to make a significant difference - it just takes a few simple decisions. Visitors are offered a variety of lifestyle changes to help keep water clean. The cumulative impact of each pledge is recorded and shown, clearly demonstrating the positive impact a single individual can have on the environment.

Get Filtered!
Take a trip through the Slow Zone to get cleaned up! This wetland experience demonstrates how grass and other plants naturally filter water.

Urban River/ Storm Drain
Oh no! Gross! You got dirty and are headed for the Un-Healthy Ocean. But don't despair - you're not alone, and there's a lot you can do together to clean up your act. Look around for other raindrops to help!

Home Sweet Home
Look closely at a snapshot of 'home' and see if you can identify where water is getting dirty or being wasted. There are 10 things that can be changed to save water and keep it clean. See if you can identify them all!

The Dirty Dozen
Learn about the top twelve pollutants that are invading our oceans and discover what you can do to make a difference. This flip door game reinforces lessons learned in the maze and gives visitors the power to act!

Animal Identification
Visit animal habitats in the maze and see if you can identify each inhabitant. You may be surprised!

Wildlife Wheel
Think you've conquered the maze? A spin of the wheel sends you on another adventure in search of certain hidden animal information, and reveals how important clean water is for their survival.

Peek-a-Boo
Snap a great take-home picture of you and your family 'swimming' with the dolphins!