Waterwatch
“Waterwatch is a national community water quality-monitoring program that has been operating since 1993. The program brings together school and community groups, landowners, Councils and Water Authorities to test the quality of their local stream or water source so that practical actions can be taken to maintain and improve water quality”. (www.gbwaterwatch.org.au)
Our neighbour Cynthia is now a volunteer monitor for our catchment and we now have the water tested where our farm meets the river on a monthly basis. Cynthia measures the temperature, conductivity and turbidity and has two locations for recording data, one being at our farm. The data is reported back to Kirsten from the water watch team and you can take a look at the informative website using the link below. The website has a list of annual water watch data records as well as educational resources and more.
Within our Goulburn/Broken Catchment our children have benefited from the school programs that have been available in the past. The programs resources are decided by Government funding made available each financial year and at present I believe there is very limited funding for school-based programs. A waterwatch co-ordinator can attend a school where children participate in activities such as taking three different water samples and testing them at school, collecting, observing and learning about aquatic macro-invertebrates, children are also being educated on the story of their catchment.
