Students and their teachers monitor water quality in their local streams or river twice annually, once in October and once in February. They use kits to test for dissolved oxygen, pH, nitrates and turbidity. Students measure both the air and water temperature and many classes collect sterile samples for bacterial analysis. Students at local high school filter these samples, incubate them and count the fecal coliform colonies after 24 hours. These water quality parameters are important for aquatic organisms and/or have implications for human health.
Water Quality Manual
This manual includes all the details you’ll need for water quality monitoring (including which bottles to use for sampling, directions for collecting your samples and running the tests, data sheets, site surveys, optimal values and much much, more!) It’s a big document, so we separated it into sections to make downloading easier:
Section I: Preparing for Monitoring
Section II: Tools for Monitoring Day
Section III: Understanding Your Monitoring Results
Section IV: Appendix
Section V: The Mulitiple Intelligences Table
Water Quality Monitoring Videos
Click on any of the links below for video instructions for each of the following tests:
(*Note: This video refers to the appearance of a “floc” in after the addition of 8 drops of Alkaline Potassium Iodide Azide, where it is actually a “precipitate”.)
Optimal Water Quality Standards
Click here to download a document about the Optimal Water Quality Standards students keep in mind when collecting data at thier adopted sites.
Material Safety Data Sheets
South Sound GREEN Water Quality Monitoring Sites
Each year over forty sites are monitored by about thirty different classrooms around Thurston county.
Water Quality Data
Students in the South Sound GREEN program have collected data on South Sound streams since the mid-1990’s. Please see below for current and past data: