Clanton Intermediate fourth grader Abbi Calhoun learned on Friday the importance of keeping water clean.

“I got to see what water looks like when you put a bunch of garbage in it,” Calhoun said. “It was gross.”

Calhoun was among 650 fourth grade students from the county participating in the first annual water festival at Jefferson State Community College campus and the adjoining Clanton Conference and Performing Arts Center.

The purpose of the festival was to educate fourth grade students on the importance of water and ways to keep it clean.

Glenn Littleton with the Alabama Clean Water Partnership said the festival is designed to educate kids that everything they do has an effect on water.

“We just want them to be able to come and learn good habits now that they can carry on when they get older,” Littleton said. “Most of the fourth graders cover the water cycle in their school curriculum so the festival provides a more hands-on approach to what they are already learning.”

The festival had three stations: Fantastic Filtration, focusing on teaching students about filtering water; Edible Aquifers, teaching students how water is contaminated; and Water Cycle Bracelets, teaching students to make a bracelet resembling the water cycle.