SHEPHERDSTOWN — Students from all around the Eastern Panhandle gathered in Shepherd University’s Storer Ballroom on Thursday to hear from local experts about local, national and global perspectives on water security. The event came from a partnership between the Rotary Club of Martinsburg and Rotary Club of Shepherdstown, who have been hosting it for more than 32 years now. Their goal is to promote education and global citizenship through meaningful dialogue between students and experts.
Eighty students from eight schools from all three Eastern Panhandle counties attended the event, many from various Interact Clubs that partner with their respective Rotary Clubs. “We touch on various topics that challenge the students to get involved and make a change and make a difference, whether it’s climate change, race relations, immigration, social media, any of those impactful things,” said Maria Brown, chair of the Shepherdstown Rotary Club’s International Services Committee. Brown said this year’s topic, water security, was chosen due to its timeliness, with both droughts and floods hitting close to home over the past year.
“We try to find a topic that we know would be intriguing and interesting but also relative to students,” Brown said. The seminar aimed to have presenters with varied experiences locally, nationally and globally, like Gabriel Sidman, a climate change scientist with the World Bank Group; Dr. John Matthews, executive director of the Alliance for Glo.