Leopold brothers take first place in Water '22 Student Showcase

Niwot Elementary School third-grader Oskar Leopold and his brother, kindergartener Teddy Leopold, won first prize in the Water Education Colorado's "Water '22 Student Showcase" competition awarded earlier this fall.

They competed in the kindergarten through fifth grade category. Their task was to show how water interacts with and affects us all as Coloradoans. Their efforts earned them a $1,000 prize in this 18 and under student contest. They were also recently featured on a social media and online PSA with Water Education Colorado CEO Jayla Poppleton.

Oskar and Teddy used one of their favorite mediums, LEGO, to create an impressive 3.5 foot long model of how our water gets to us here in the Front Range. Oskar described his model as a way to "learn how water flows and is kind of a cycle. I wanted to do the competition because I thought we could do a good job to show how water flows in nature and people use water in everyday life, not just to drink, but also to grow what we eat, and really for everything."

The model features the Rocky Mountains on one end, and ends with a colorful scene of the plains where the LEGO community is using water for all kinds of purposes: irrigation, hydropower, gardening, recreation, environmental, and household use.

Oskar was in charge of the nature landscape and the LEGO home, per his mother, Alyson Meyer Gould, while Teddy configured the Lego mountain and helped with the crops. When asked about their creation, Teddy said, "It was really nice that I learned how water goes in streams and falls from the top to the bottom."

They submitted their model with a supplementary paragraph describing how five of their LEGO people in the model interact with water. One example is Theo, the LEGO town's water engineer.

Oskar writes, "The water engineer's name is Theo. Theo has this cool machine that water goes through and creates electricity or power. Theo brings power to that house. If he brings power, people in the house can watch TV or other stuff. After the water runs through the machine it goes through irrigation ditches. And the irrigation ditches carry water to the crops."

Water Education Colorado (formerly Colorado Foundation for Water Education) was founded in 2002 and is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit "charged with the important task of ensuring a sustainable water future for our state by educating and engaging Colorado citizens around this limited resource."

The Water '22 project is a year-long celebration and series of events designed to bring more attention to water here in Colorado. This year also marks the 100th anniversary of the Colorado River Compact and the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, two significant historical years in Colorado's water history. More information can be found at http://www.water22.org and http://www.watereducationcolorado.org.

Meyer Gould and her husband, Dr. Derek Leopold, are both very proud of their children and how they used their vision and LEGO engineering expertise to bring this idea to life. Teddy plans to be a professional LEGO builder when he grows up, while Oskar hopes to play professional soccer in Europe and loves to fish when he is not on the soccer pitch.

They plan to save most of their winnings for their college funds, but got to each spend $50 for their hard work and dedication to the project.