Texas has 500 times more water underground than anything you see above the surface. Let’s learn more about the water below our feet at a big, free celebration of Groundwater Awareness Week, held in Zilker Park’s Beverley S. Shefflield Education Center on Wednesday, March 15 from 5:30 – 7 p.m.

At this event, you can explore the Splash! Into the Edwards Aquife Exhibit, a fun learning experience deep inside a simulated limestone cave that demonstrate how the aquifer was formed and how it maintains its average daily flow of 32 million gallons of water at Barton Springs.

In addition to checking out the Splash! Exhibit, you can enjoy some family friendly, hands-on activities from 5:30 – 7 p.m.:

• Meet a mermaid!
• Play to better understand Groundwater!
  Compete to pump water the fastest, compare “longest straw” draws, measure the speed of karst recharge, and see a model of the Edward’s Aquifer in action.

Then, at 7 p.m. you can enjoy a free screening of Our Desired Future, a multimedia project to educate Texans on the interconnections between water above and below ground — and what Texans can do to keep water flowing for future generations. This will screen on the banks of Barton Springs, followed by a Q & A with the Director.

Our Desired Future features animation, videos, audio, written essays and photography. In this screening, the state’s hydrology and water management is explained through the stories of Texans from different regions of the state, including the Hill Country, the Gulf, the Panhandle, West Texas and the Rio Grande Valley.

Our Desired Future is a project of the Texas Center for Policy Studies and funded in part by a generous grant from the Shield-Ayres Foundation. You can learn much more about this multimedia project at www.ourdesiredfuture.com.

For more info about the Splash Exhibit, please visit www.austintexas.gov/splash. And for more info about these special events on March 15, please click here.