The day when Bostonians can swim in a cleaner, safer Charles River is not far away, according to environmental officials.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cambridge Public Schools held a series of workshops at MIT last Friday to increase awareness about the water quality of the Charles River.

Dr. Eric Adams, senior research engineer at MIT, said he hoped in a few years the river would be safe to swim in at all times.

‘Right now the river is safe to swim in about 60 percent of the time,’ Adams said.

‘They’ve been trying to clean up the Charles River and the Boston Harbor for a long time, and they’ve come a long way,’ said Arthur Fitzmaurice, a graduate student at MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, who ran one of the workshops. ‘But we need to educate the public.’

Environmental experts agreed, emphasizing that the future of the Charles River lies in the hands of Boston and Cambridge citizens.

‘The city is doing the big job,’ through street sweeping, construction and inspections, said James Wilcox, supervisor of sewer maintenance and engineering for the City of Cambridge Department of Public Works, but ‘you can do the little part’ by telling others to clean up after themselves.

Workshop participants, mostly Cambridge Public High School students on a field trip, said finding out more about the Charles River and teaching others what you learn is the key to keeping the river clean. Maria Toledano, Claire Wurcer and Tamika Mayes, eighth-graders at the Morse School, said they would tell their parents everything they learned.

‘We learned about the type of bugs at the bottom of the river,’ Mayes said.

‘You can tell how polluted the river is by what kinds of bugs live in the river,’ Toledano said.

Fitzmaurice said the children’s lessons would influence their parents’ habits.

‘Students take what they learn and tell their parents,’ Fitzmaurice said. ‘Then hopefully their parents will stop and think about how they’re affecting the future of our water.’

Although most of the workshop participants were high school students, organizers opened the event to the public. Several Cambridge residents attended out of curiosity.

‘I think it’s great that there are some adults here, too,’ Fitzmaurice said. ‘There are some Cambridge homeowners here who came just to find out more about our water system.’

Bill Walsh-Rogalski, counsel for special projects at the Environmental Protection Agency of New England, urged workshop participants to recognize their role in keeping the Charles River clean. It takes a lot of people, such as scientists and engineers, to make this river clean, Walsh-Rogalski said. But ‘it’s going to take the citizens of Boston and Cambridge’ to keep it clean, as well, he said.

Friday’s workshops and panel discussion were part of a larger program between MIT, the EPA and the Department of Justice, and will be aired on community television.