Big Island students win water conservation poster contest
Nearly 400 Hawaii Island students entered this year’s water poster contest, turning conservation into an early civics lesson for K-6 families.
Nearly 400 Hawaii Island students turned water conservation into a canvas this year, giving the County of Hawaii a colorful reminder that saving water starts long before a drought reaches the tap. The Department of Water Supply named the winners of its 8th annual Keiki Water Conservation Poster Contest, built around the theme Make Every Drop Count and open to students in grades K-6.
The contest is more than an art project. It is part of the department’s broader public message that water conservation is a year-round responsibility on an island where supply is always a public issue. The Department of Water Supply is a semi-autonomous County of Hawaii agency charged with managing, controlling and operating the county waterworks, and county financial reporting describes it as a legally separate entity that the county remains financially accountable for.
That makes the poster contest a small but pointed extension of a much larger job. The department’s mission is to provide customers with an adequate and continuous supply of safe drinking water in a financially responsible manner, and the Hawaii County Water Board helps manage that system by adopting rules, procedures and budgets for the water department.
Top finishers came from across the island and across different school settings, including Waiākeawaena Elementary, Kanu o ka Āina New Century Charter School, Innovations Public Charter School, E.B. deSilva Elementary and several homeschool families. By recognizing winners from every grade level, the county spread the message that conservation is not just for adults making infrastructure decisions. It starts with keiki learning how everyday habits affect the whole community.
Judges scored the entries on creativity, originality and how well each poster reflected the conservation theme. That emphasis fits the county’s long-running approach to outreach: the first contest in 2019 was open to kindergarten through fifth grade and drew more than 200 entries islandwide, with the winning posters slated for display at the West Hawaii Civic Center and online. A 2020 poster contest used the theme Conserve to Preserve, and county messaging has also urged children to be Be Wai Akamai, or water smart.
The latest contest shows how the county has tried to make conservation part of island culture, not just a response to dry weather. By pairing student artwork with a practical water message, the Department of Water Supply is building habits early, linking classroom creativity to the long-term reality of protecting Hawaii Island’s limited water supply.
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