“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!”
“Another amazing kit! My students (year 8s) got so much out of this, especially the practical element. We also had a local scientist visit the class after our testing day to discuss the results and answer some of the students' questions about what they had discovered. The students have been so engaged throughout the whole process, sharing their learning in our school newsletters and creating videos to share in an upcoming whole school assembly.
My only criticism would be having feedback due in August, meaning the study had to be completed in winter. We managed to go on the coldest day of the year so far, and whilst the students had a lot of fun and learnt a lot, it would have been a more pleasant experience later in the year.
Thanks School Kit, looking forward to repeating this kit with future classes to see how the results change over time.”
“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!”
“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”
“The majority of the class enjoyed completing this activity. It was exciting, they enjoyed getting out of the class and doing real world maths. It was fun. The topic was interesting, it was real data and a number of us are interested in ecosystems. We loved looking at the bugs. Some of the activities took a bit of time to complete and we needed to be patient. We definitely needed boots on. It took a long time to get through some of the activities. It definitely pays to do the dummy run, several times to avoid delays on location. The more practise the better.
Our stream did not have a lot of invertebrates, but at 9 degrees on a a winter morning that was expected. Using the kit has lead to lots of conversations on improving water quality.
Our stream appears to be in good health but we will revisit at another time of the year to confirm our assessment.”
“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.”
