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It is vital that the next generation of public health practitioners understand the importance of ensuring affordable and equitable access to safe drinking water for all communities, and the interconnected roles that scientific research, public policy, community engagement, and advocacy play in ensuring this. Here, we describe the Water Tool, a website where student-users develop an exploratory and customizable journey through data on drinking water suppliers’ compliance with regulations, watershed pollution, and environmental justice:https://eew-sdwa-nj.streamlit.app/In the course we built alongside a New Jersey-specific version of the Water Tool, students complete three in-class assignments and a final project. They first use it to answer a basic set of questions such as, how many public water systems are there in the state? Students then find their own water provider through an interactive map and describe the provider’s source water and number of persons served. Next, they use the tool to investigate socioeconomic, biophysical, and public health indicators of environmental inequity in their area. In the final project, students reflect on the meaning of the information they compiled and how to communicate it. Through hands-on engagement with data and structured opportunities for reflection, the Water Tool enables students to learn both about how drinking water is regulated and how to assess information on drinking water quality for specific water systems. Although we designed the tool and assignments specifically with New Jersey in mind, it could be reconfigured for use in other states or more local contexts.