“My year 8 class loved having the opportunity to do 'real' science. We visited the Mangarata Stream at the base of the Hakarimata Range. One of the things that made the students feel like real scientists was the provision of the equipment like the periscope and thermometer. It was a brilliant opportunity to integrate a lot of different curriculum areas: maths, technology, science and social sciences; providing a very relevant context for students to apply their learning. We are now keen to conduct more testing in some other areas and compare the results between different waterways, possibly identifying a stream we could adopt as an ongoing project.”
“My year 4/5 class absolutely loved exploring out local waterway (Company Ditch in the Moutere River). The water temperature stayed between 9.9 and 10.3 degrees, and they were surprised that even at different depths, the temperature was almost the same. the students were a bit disappointed that the periscope leaked, which made it difficult to measure the clarity of the water (it filled up with water). The water flow card and the invertebrates card were the two favourites. They loved timing the orange float down the river as well as seeing what was living in the river. The maths aspect afterwards was a wee bit tough for my class, but it was easy enough for me to transfer the data on to the poster. It was an excellent School Kit!”
“This was a great kit with lots of great equipment and resources. Unfortunately we have had to get the children to do a lot of the testing at home due to interruptions and the timing of the kit. Great kit though, would recommend.”
“An awesome kit. My year 4-8 students had a fabulous time testing the water quality at our local creek. We are looking forward to going back and seeing if there are any changes to water quality throughout the year. We learnt lots of new skills and enjoyed the opportunity to engage with our local environment.”
“We had a while senior school morning at our local Domain- We all headed down and the water testing group used the stream that goes through our domain as our base. We worked in small groups and collected the data using the amazing resources. We found our stream to be incredibly clean and well cared for which pleased all of us.”
“My class of year 7&;8's had a great time investigating one of our local streams. We are a rural school with many families living and working on farms close to rivers and streams. The connection to home and school has been a great opportunity to have some great discussions and questions coming from home and the children are keen to carry on with more water testing, using chemical kits, which is being carried out by one of our families on their dairy farm.
We found that the stream health was fair in most sections, although some of the areas came up poor and the children are looking forward to furthering their investigations in other areas of the community.
Thank you for this wonderful kit from all of us in Room 15!”
“Our Tui Whanau had a great time down at one of our local waterways - Hays Stream, Papakura,
Prior to our visits we engaged in the Mini Classroom Olympics and we also made our own bathyscope each. The Water Testing linked well into our “Community is Home” and “Action This!” inquiry led curriculum and also made links to prior learning from Term 1 and 2 (Waka Journey - School kit). The children were especially interested in looking for creatures in our stream and discovered that we may not have a healthy stream as we could not find any vertebrates. The next step for us is to clean our stream and take away litter. Our senior school has started to plant natives along the bank and are joining us with our mission to keep our local waterways clean and healthy. Tui Whanau are looking forward to re-testing our stream in Spring to see if any changes have happened. Thank you!
Please visit our Tui Whanau site for images and video's about our Water Testing learning.
https://sites.google.com/redhill.school.nz/tuiwhanau2020/Term-1/pakirehuainquiry”
“I often feel like teaching science is tricky. This kit definitely helped me ‘take the plunge’. We used two parent experts, a water scientist and a riparian planting ranger, who guided our journey. We spent lots of time exploring our stream and deciding whether all the factors we measured meant it was healthy or not. We realised it is complicated to live the way we do and keep our rivers healthy. The students were so engaged and we feel so connected to our river, our valley and our community. Thanks School Kit”
