Purpose
The Water Environment Association of Ontario Scholarship Program was established in 2007 to promote student awareness of, and recognize outstanding students in, the water quality field in Ontario. The scholarships support promising students who are pursuing careers that protect water quality, including wastewater treatment and watershed management.
Originally formed in 1933 as the Canadian Institute on Sewage and Sanitation, the Water Environment Association of Ontario (WEAO) is a not-for-profit technical and educational organization with 1500 members representing water quality professionals in Ontario.
Eligibility
Applicants must:
- be attending an Ontario college or university on a full-time basis,
- be a member of the Water Environment Federation (WEF) and/or Water Environment Association of Ontario (WEAO), and
- not have received the scholarship previously.
Entry Requirements
Applicants must submit:
- a completed application form,
- two (2) completed Reference Forms, one from a current or previous professor and one from an employer in a relevant area.
- an essay of up to 500 words, typed using word processing software, describing a technical issue related to wastewater treatment and/or water pollution control that in the opinion of the applicant is important for the protection of water quality in Ontario. The essay should make reference to relevant examples, where appropriate, and state how the applicant’s chosen field of study and planned career path may help address the issue or problem. Cite all references (see FAQ for details).
Timeline for Submission
Completed applications must be received no later than December 1, 2026. The recipient will be publicly recognized in the spring 2027 issue of Influents magazine and at the WEAO Annual Conference.
Support Provided
The scholarship will include four (4) awards. There will be one (1) award of $2,000 and three (3) awards of $1,000 each. One award is reserved for a college student and one award is reserved for a university student.
Selection Criteria
A Scholarship Selection Committee will evaluate the applicants. They will select the recipients based on the quality of the applicant’s essay (60%) and Reference Forms from professor and employer (20% each). Recipients will be informed by mail and telephone.
Submission and Questions
The application and all required attachments should be emailed in a single PDF file (<10 MB) to scholarship@weaocommittee.org. Any questions about the scholarship can be directed to the same email address. Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) are posted on the scholarship website: www.weao.org/resources.
Frequently Asked Questions
Eligibility
Yes, as long as you are enrolled full-time at an Ontario college or university and meet the other criteria.
Yes. There are instructions provided on the WEAO website to help students to obtain membership. Once registered, you need your WEF Membership ID # for the scholarship application.
Application Form
This is the 8-digit number assigned to you when you first become a member of WEF. You need to be a member of WEF and/or WEAO in order to be eligible to apply for the WEAO scholarship.
No, do not submit a résumé or CV. If you do, they will be discarded.
References (Professor & Employer)
A referee is the person who gives you a reference; they must complete the Reference Form and submit it directly to WEAO.
At a minimum, you must give your referee an electronic or paper copy of the Reference Form. In addition, you may wish to supply them with the Scholarship Brochure to tell them about the WEAO Scholarship, your résumé, and any other information you feel will help your referee to properly fill out the reference form.
Yes, as long as this was paid work and not a volunteer experience. Also, the same professor cannot be used for both the employer and professor references. You would need to use a different professor for your “professor” reference.
A relevant employer will be one that ideally is related in some manner to the water quality industry: employment with a municipal works department, provincial ministry administering some aspect related to managing water resources, equipment manufacturers and suppliers, consulting and design firms, contractors and constructors installing water- related infrastructure, government research centres, university research laboratories (if this is paid employment), etc. However, most jobs will provide you with transferrable skills that are applicable to the water quality industry. Your employment experience in a “relevant area” is interpreted broadly for the purposes of applying for the WEAO Scholarship. If you have any questions or concerns, please direct them to scholarship@weaocommittee.org.
Essay
Your essay word count will be double-checked upon submission, and you will be penalized if your essay is over 500 words.
The word count is that determined by your word-processing software used to type your essay. For example, in Microsoft Word®, go to Tools –> Word Count and enter on your application form the number of words listed there. If your word count is higher than 500, you must edit your essay to be more succinct and decrease your word count to 500 or fewer.
Yes, you can include citations in the text of your essay and include a list of references at the end. The word count will include only the in-text citations (e.g. “Smith et al. 2000”). The list of references at the end will not count towards the word limit.
We agree that many other parts of the world have significant water quality and quantity issues. However, the Water Environment Association of Ontario represents water quality professionals in Ontario, and therefore we are interested in knowing what applicants have learned about the important water quality issues locally. We challenge applicants to dig into the issues closer to home, which helps applicants identify the priorities in the environmental industry in Ontario and prepare them to pursue related careers within the Province.
Yes, definitely, you can discuss biosolids management. Biosolids are a significant component to the wastewater treatment system.
Reference using APA style. In text citations should be of the format “(Smith et all., 2000)”. The reference list should be of the following format: Smith, J.F., Smith, A.T., & King, A.G (2000). Phosphorus recovery in wastewater treatment. Sewage Works Journal 32, 344-348.
Submission Logistics
All submissions that are received at the scholarship@weaocommittee.org email address will be acknowledged by return email. This is true for both applications as well as reference forms. If you submitted an application or your referee submitted a reference form, but did not receive an acknowledgement within a week, please call the WEAO office at 416-410-6933.
PDF is a standard file format for documents. You can create PDF files using Adobe Acrobat, other software, and PDF print drivers. You can view PDF files using the freely- available Adobe reader (http://get.adobe.com/reader/) or other software packages.
Separate the PDF file into enough files so that each individual file is <10 MB. Then email each file in a separate email. In the subject line of your email, indicate the # of emails; for example, if you have two files then send two emails including in your subject titles “1 of 2” and “2 of 2”.
Note that your referee must submit their reference form directly to WEAO; applicant’s cannot submit it on their behalf. For electronic submission, a scanner can be used to convert the paper document into a PDF file. Copy shops should also be able to provide this service.
There are free software packages that will do this for you. An example is “PdfEdit995” available at http://www.pdfedit995.com/.