Nathaniel Hitt, senior scientist with the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, talks to students about local water issues on Oct. 24. Tom Markland

SHEPHERDSTOWN — Students from all around the Eastern Panhandle gathered in Shepherd University’s Storer Ballroom last 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 Global Water Adaptation; and Maria Russo, Clean Water Campaign coordinator for the West Virginia Rivers Coalition.

One presenter was Dr. Nathaniel Hitt, a senior scientist with the West Virginia Rivers Coalition. Dr. Hitt informed the students on local water issues and how issues like biology, economics and climate change all affect the health of water in the Eastern Panhandle.

“The water managers of the future will not have the luxury of thinking about only one thing at a time. They must think about the integration of multiple things at once,” Hitt said. “This is a challenge for leadership. You guys are up to it, but this is your challenge.”

Brown said she hopes the students take the information they learned during the seminar and dive into it, getting involved in local water conservation efforts.

“We hope that they start out locally and get maybe in their Interact Clubs or their Key Clubs or whatever — they go and get involved with our local watersheds and how they can make a difference moving forward,” Brown said. “Whether it’s the use of water bottles or contaminating the water, we want them to know how they can get involved locally to impact their future.”