Project WET (Water Education for Teachers) is a nonprofit water education program for educators and young people, ages 5-12, based nationally at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. The North Dakota State Water Commission established the original WET program in North Dakota in 1984.
Then in 1989, Project WET's Executive Director was invited by Montana State University (with funding from the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation) to duplicate the original North Dakota program in Montana, Idaho, and later Arizona. The success of this pilot multi-state initiative led to a decision to develop a national Project WET program. In 1990, the Council for Environmental Education, (formerly the Western Regional Environmental Education Council) became an official co-sponsor, in partnership with The Watercourse, of Project WET.
In 1995, Minnesota Project WET was established between Project WET U.S.A. and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Division of Waters. Peder Otterson was the first Minnesota Project WET Coordinator, and set up the first Project WET workshop in Minnesota that April in Morris, Minnesota. Since that time Project WET has continued to grow through its network of trained facilitators and through the increasing number of educators who have attended these workshops. The Project WET program is extremely diverse in the types of educators and facilitators represented.