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Schools

Lots of kids across Australia participate in Waterwatch activities to learn more about their local wateways and help them become healthier. It's fun too!

Getting started

A range of activities, publications and other resources are provided below to help teachers engage students in wateway education. Additional information is available for teachers to get started on developing a school-based waterway monitoring program. For more information see Getting started.

Activities

A range of fun, educational activities have been designed for primary and secondary school students. These resources also provide background or supporting information on waterway topics.

Image of Freckles the Frog Creek Rescue game!
You can help Freckles the Frog clean up the creek and learn about what makes a creek healthy at the same time. But hurry, Freckles needs your help now!

Cover image of River Journeys book River Journeys (2004)
The activities contained in this activity book are designed to help students to look at the past, present and future themes of rivers in a creative way. There are cross-curriculum activities for upper primary to lower secondary students.

Drawing of activities happening in a catchment. What's happening in our catchment
The Waterwatch Queensland Communities caring for catchment poster is a useful resource to generate classroom discussions about what activities happen in a catchment which could impact on the environment.

The Story of a River – This activity provides an excellent introduction to the issues relating to water quality, river management and the inter-connections within a catchment. It can be adapted to suit different year levels and geographic locations.

How to make a dip net – This activity provides instructions on how to make a simple dip net suitable for catching water bugs for monitoring.

Water cycles and catchments

The Department of Natural Resources and Water has developed a number of modules for Queensland teachers of Science and Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE) years 1 to 10.

These modules provide activity ideas and resource sheets for both teachers and students and can be viewed from the Department of Natural Resources and Water’s website – www.nrw.qld.gov.au/education.

Two of these modules are particularly useful for teachers wanting to conduct catchment and water quality activities.

Water Cycles and Catchments – Level 3 Science and SOSE
Catchment Management – Levels 4 / 5 / 6 Science

Other activities in which students could get involved include:

water quality testing
sampling for water bugs, fish or frogs
replanting vegetation along a creek bank
helping others to understand why healthy waterways are important through art, music, festivals and displays
writing letters to newspapers about catchment issues which may concern them
collating historical information about the local catchment to find out what it was like in the past, to help us care for it in the future

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Saltwatch activities

Saltwatch activities assist students to understand the issue of salinity in a catchment, and its impacts on the environment.

Activity Part A: what is salinity? (PDF, 574 kB)*: This resource contains background information on salinity. This information has been developed for a variety of different audiences including both primary and secondary students, and community groups.

Activity Part B: saltwatch for schools (PDF, 622 kB)*: This resource contains a range of activities that have been developed specifically for upper primary and lower secondary students.

Saltwatch activities for schools are also available individually: