St Mark’s College joins mission to sustain Sydney’s water quality
St Mark’s Catholic College, Stanhope Gardens has joined Sydney Water’s Streamwatch program in a bid to help keep Sydney’s waterways clean.
Students from Years 7 to 9 from the college’s environmental group are taking part in the program by testing water samples from nearby Caddies Creek and Elizabeth Macarthur Creek, both located within a kilometre of the school.
The Streamwatch program provides a fun hands-on learning experience where students discover the importance of water quality and catchment health through classroom-based lessons and fieldwork activities. Students learn to interpret their test results and understand how activities impact on water quality in their local area.
Streamwatch can be integrated across many key learning areas in the school curriculum, so students can achieve syllabus outcomes for subjects such as photography, science, maths and environmental learning.
Leader of learning at St Mark’s, Keith Heggart, who organised the Streamwatch program said the initative has really engaged the students who concerned about environmental issues.
'Streamwatch has been fantastic because students are having the opportunity to make a difference to their environment,’ said Keith. ‘Students now have a greater appreciation of the relevance of science, and especially environmental science, and are also becoming more active and aware citizens.'
Sydney Water provides Streamwatch training, equipment and technical support to the students, who will test water quality and collect data each term. The students use the equipment to conduct a range of water quality tests including temperature, pH levels, electrical conductivity, turbidity, acidity and alkalinity, dissolved oxygen and contamination.
When choosing a local site for testing, the students had to determine if there were any safety hazards and whether there was any storm water discharge close by that could affect the quality of the water.
Water samples were taken from each site and the students measure the temperature, note any changes to the area that might have affected water quality or flow such as trees and blackberry bushes.
The students will play an important role in protecting waterways by monitoring changes over time and reporting pollution incidents in local creeks and waterways.
The group will be the first to regularly measure these two tributaries to Cattai Creek that flows into the Hawkesbury River. The data the students collect will prove an interesting and valuable measure of the impact of new development in the area on local creeks and streams.
Over 200 groups of volunteers including community organisations and schools monitor water quality and the health of local waterways at about 600 sites across greater Sydney as part of Sydney Water’s Streamwatch program.
For more information visit www.streamwatch.org.au
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