By Rae Yun Tan

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Faculty from UK’s science departments are offering cash prizes students’ water-related photographs, beginning Sept. 2nd.

UK’s very first UK Water Week was planned by faculty from UK’s science departments to raise awareness of problems with local water systems and get students thinking about solutions.

“Water is essential to life, but often overlooked, because we … have access to it,” said Evan Wesley, a former UK graduate who helped organize Water Week with the department of biosystems and agriculture engineering. “It’s a widespread topic that nobody talks about because there’s no reason to.”

Carmen Agouridis of the department of biosystems and agriculture engineering worked with with faculty from the departments of agriculture,food and environment, arts and sciences, engineering and the Kentucky Geological Survey to organize Water Week.

“Water touches all our lives,” Agourdis said.

The Tracy Farmer Institute for Sustainability and the Environment funded the scavenger hunt and photo contest, Agourdis said.

“What (TFISE) does is that it tries to promote sustainability in the environment around campus, Kentucky, and so forth,” Agourdis said. “They wanted to form a ‘working’ group around the topic of water. So … we got a group together and we said, ‘What can we work on that’s not being done now?’

The scavenger hunt will send students in groups of 1-3 all around campus to search for sites related to water resources, according to the Water Week website. Once found, students will submit photos of themselves with the site and its name and location.

A photo contest will also begin on the second and will challenge students to submit their best photo showing how water affects our world as a resource, according to the event site.

$100 prizes for finishing the scavenger hunt quickly and most creatively will be awarded, according to the event site, as well as $75 for second place and $50 for third. Photo contest winners will receive the same amounts.

From September 15 to September 19th, students who sign up for Water Week will have the chance to engage in admission-free, water-themed activities like a Monday, Sept. 15 documentary showing career panel with water and environmental professors on the following Wednesday.

Activities later in the week will included a overnight camping trip at Robinson Forest, said Wesley.

On Tuesday, the photo contest display and awards presentation will be held in the Mining and Minerals Resources Building. Students must register online before entering the contest as individual competitors or groups of three, according to the event website.

“The overall goal of Water Week …is to bring to the surface Lexington’s water resource, the problems with it, our solutions, and what we can do… to protect our water,” Wesley said. “This week is to get water in people’s conversations.”