Know Your Texas Water An Educational Resources for Teachers and Parents

This is a graph of the statewide average annual precipitation (data from WRCC, 2005). The y-axis is average annual precipitation in inches and the scale goes from zero to 45 inches. The x-axis shows the year and the scale begins about 1880 and ends with 2005. The graph show a wide variation in rainfall over time with a long-term average of about 27 inches per year. The record drought of the 1950s is discernable with a seven-year period below average and as low as 15 inches per year statewide.

Marketing research has shown that the more Texans know about their water, the more likely they are to conserve. Teachers and parents are often placed in a role of building children's understanding about the importance of water resources and how to conserve water. TWDB offers Know Your Texas Water to provide educators with the background knowledge for Texas water resources. This web resource features web quests, animations, maps, and other tools based on the TWDB's scientific and engineering reports and data including the State Water Plan.

TWDB offers educational workshops on a variety of subjects around the topic of water conservation and education initiatives. Please visite our Workshop and Webinar web page for information and registration links to these opportunities.

Indexes

State Water Planning

The state water plan is based on a "bottom-up" consensus-driven approach to water planning that involves 16 regional water planning groups. For the latest information on water planning in the state, visit the Water Resources Planning and Information web pages.

Conservation Literature Resources

The Conservation Division offers the public the ability to order brochures and other conservation resources such as drip gauges, rulers, flow meter bags and other items to encourage wise water use. For a complete listing of these resources and to learn how to place an order, please go to the Conservation Literature page.

Maps

TWDB produces many maps for Texas water resources such as the Major Texas Water Resources, Major Aquifers of Texas, and Major Texas River Basins, link to the TWDB Mapping website to order or download these maps.

Web Quests

A web quest is an inquiry-oriented activity that includes resources that are found using the internet.  TWDB has created the following web quests based on internet resources available from our agency. 

  1. Are you interested in knowing the source of your water?  Would you like to know the projected water demand and needs for your region?  Would you like to know what strategies are being proposed to meet future water resource needs for your region?  If the answer is yes, link to the Know Your Texas Water Web Quest to investigate 2007 State Water Plan and TWDB's Regional Water Planning Data Web Interface. A Know Your Texas Water Webquest Worksheet is also available to record the results of your web quest.
  2. Rainwater Harvesting has provided people around the world with water supply for centuries.  Are you interested in learning more about how rainwater harvesting is currently being used in Texas.  If so, explore this topic by linking to the Rainwater Harvesting Web Quest based on the publication, The Texas Manual on Rainwater Harvesting.

Google Earth

Many Texas educators are learning how to bring geographic understanding to their classrooms by incorporating Google Earth exercises into their classroom activities. To explore this mapping tool, you must have install Google Earth on your computer.  The Google Earth web site contain free versions that you can download, as well as, tutorials for how to use this tool.  You may need to check with your IT specialists to obtain permission to download and use this software.  The Google Geo EDU Resources PDF contains useful educational links to learn more about how to use this tool.

Scientific Data

Are you interested in learning more about the scientific and planning data for Texas surface water, groundwater and water use?  If so, link to the TWDB's Water Information Integration & Dissemenation (WIID) web resource.