Water health with Kevin Archer and Chris Fowles of TRC

This is the programme for the activity led by Chris Fowles and Kevin Archer, as part of SCANZ 2015 International Celebration of Water and Peace in central New Plymouth on Saturday 31st January 2015.

11.00am -11.30am

· We will talk in general terms about Council monitoring of Taranaki rivers and streams and in particular the Huatoki Stream, focusing on the macroinvertebrates and how we use their presence or absence as an indicator of water quality.

· We will mention our school’s education programme from primary up to Y13 science programmes involving our use of SHMAK ( Stream Health Measurement and Assessment Kit).

· We will touch on how we also use water turbidity and temperature readings as other indicators.

· We will have on display several trays of water samples(containing invertebrates) that we have taken earlier in the morning from a site further upstream. We will have on hand appropriate identification sheets to help us come up with a ‘score’ for the water quality at that site.

11.30am-12.15pm – Practical session
For safety reasons we will not expect people to get into the stream but Chris and I will as we will be wearing waders. We will gather samples from the stream, put them into our large white trays and ask people to try and identify the invertebrates along the same lines as we did in the talk itself. Again we will have appropriate identification sheets on hand. We will also get some people to look along the turbidity tube to gauge the clarity of the water plus ask people to read the thermometers.

12.15pm -12.30pm – review of session and questions.