All water conservation efforts depend on public awareness and an understanding of the need for conservation. Promoting reductions of water misuse, waste and loss are considered to be the most economical and environmentally-protective management tools for meeting water supply challenges today.
The Visitor’s Centre at the ConocoPhillips Global Water Sustainability Center (GWSC), in Doha, is a showcase of water — how it defines the past and guides the future of the country. It not only acknowledges the technology that is needed to develop sustainable water supplies but also promotes the need for conservation and stewardship to ensure sustainable supplies for continued growth and economic prosperity.
Putting dynamic, fun and interactive education into action to teach children that wasting even a drop of water is bad helps them value this scarce natural resource and change their wasteful consumption behaviours.
Encouraging children to keep taps turned off while brushing teeth and washing hands and avoiding taking long showers can motivate them to promote water conservation in their respective homes by discussing it with their parents and siblings. It can save hundreds of cubic metres of water each day.
The 300sq m GWSC Visitor’s Centre, located in Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP), excels at providing interesting and memorable water conservation knowledge and tips for schoolchildren.  The Visitor’s Centre opens its doors to schools in Doha to enhance awareness of water conservation among students from the ages of nine-16. The fun-packed educational tour takes about one-two hours and is divided into four parts.
First, students learn about the importance of water and how limited it is on the global level. Second, they get to know about Qatar’s water resources and how they are utilised. Third, the children are taught valuable tools to minimise their personal water consumption. And fourth, they are shown a video on water conservation and what GWSC does in terms of research and development.
At the end of the educational tour, each student is given a certificate of attendance and the centre bestows on them the responsibility of being conscious water conservation promoters with the hopes that they will take back to their homes and schools all what they have learned at the centre.
The centre is very child-friendly. It is designed to catch children’s attention and in many ways resembles a small amusement park, making the experience exciting for all students. Visitors enter through a captivating water gate made of fine water droplets and get to watch a video on a globe-shaped rotating projector.
GWSC’s educational philosophy adopts hands-on learning methodologies and persuades children to embrace an active role in water conservation through touchscreen animations and interactive experiments.
Director of GWSC, Dr Samer Adham, states that these types of centres are extremely important in enhancing awareness, commenting: “With every school that comes to GWSC, you already have 20-30 water conscious kids who serve as catalysts in changing patterns of behaviour that are detrimental to our limited water resources.”
Children who come to GWSC enjoy three potential benefits: they learn methods to conserve water in their daily routines; they bring this knowledge to their homes and influence water conservation behaviour in the family; and water awareness leaves a lasting impression on the child into adulthood and improves the water using behaviours of the next generation.
To date, GWSC has welcomed over 3,000 students from over 35 schools in Qatar with some of the schools sending several visits each year. On the March 24, this year, GWSC observed the annual UN World Water Day by sending three experts to visit the Omar Bin Al-Khattab First Primary School for Boys.  
The event started with a short video and an informative presentation about the water cycle, followed by a quiz where students were divided into groups and the winning groups received prizes. The school visit was concluded by demonstrating good water conservation practices and presenting Certificates of Appreciation to the school principal.
GWSC aims to become a global centre of excellence for desalination and produced water management, befitting its unique position in Qatar. While the centre’s primary focus is finding solutions for Qatar, it is also keen on exporting its knowledge globally. GWSC’s educational programme is just another way of promoting water conservation amongst today’s young generations of Qatar, leaders of tomorrow, one school at a time.