SA Smart Water Resourcefulness Competition

The 2022 SA Smart Challenge asked San Antonio area students for a product, service or strategy to help the city best use and manage its water for the long term. This is the full eight-minute video we made on the SA Smart Water Resourcefulness Competition for DISCO Learning Media.

One winning team proposed faucet aerators, “these little tiny things,” as team member Ajay Panday puts it. Many older homes have faucets without them, Rashmi Basu says, and one “only costs 50 cents.” At the time, the team, which also included Annia Gimeno and Cody Zhu, was distributing aerators to low-income families through the food bank. Cody says it was to help with water bills and with the long droughts that strain the aquifer.

Dr. Michael E. Webber, author of Power Trip: The Story of Energy, explains why Texas students should learn about energy and water: Texas is one of the largest energy producers in the world, and it has a lot of drought and floods too. Then-Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Dr. Cliff Zintgraff, chief learning officer at the San Antonio Museum of Science and Technology, also appear.

Michael sees the future of energy as “a cause for optimism,” with a place in the industry for engineers and scientists, and for musicians and people who like marketing or art. The video ends with then-Mayor Nirenberg’s message to students: “You are the future of our city.” We also made a three-minute version.