First, we talked about landforms and thought about how water runs off the land and collects in valleys in the landscape. Water then flows into other waterways and eventually ends up in a river which flows to estuaries and the sea.
Our Pakuranga Stream flows into the Tamaki River (awa) and then into the Waitemata Harbour.
We learnt how to use a tube to collect stream water, and test the clarity of the water. Next we took the air temperature and temperature of the water. Then we used nets to catch as many invertebrates as we could. We used a plastic box with compartments to put specimens in. We had an identification card underneath the box so we had to think about where to put the creature that we caught. Each invertebrate on the card has a coloured line around it.
Green borders = clean, high quality water
Yellow borders = medium quality water
Red borders = poor water quality.
Sadly, our specimens were more in the red zone...snails, water boatmen...
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| Julia made us think about rain water and where water goes when it falls on the land |
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| The specimen box is really useful... we had to transfer the animals really carefully so we didn't kill them |
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| Filling up the tube |
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| "Can you still see the sinker?" |
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| Working as a team |
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| Transferring water to the main collecting tray so the animals had some water to swim in |
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| "Is this enough water for the animals?" |
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| Putting the invertebrates in the smaller identification box |
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| "Which invertebrate do you think this is...?" |
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| Perfect teamwork to get the testing done Thank you to all team members who worked hard today to get the samples we needed. We will post the results on the WaiCare website, as we have done in the past. Then we will have to compare the samples over time and come up with some conclusions. We will be collecting samples every month and uploading them to WaiCare's website. |
The Eco-Warriors team.
12.3.14
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