#changingcurrents

How healthy is Yellow Creek?

In the fall of 2015 the grade 9 students participated in some field work evaluating the water quality of Yellow Creek - a creek that is part of the Don Valley Watershed. We started the year discussing watersheds and their importance to the city by reading through the TRCA watershed report cards. From there we explored ways we could investigate the health of the watersheds which led me to find a program called Changing Currents through Eco Spark. This program gives students the tools and resources they need to becomes water quality detectives. They participated in chemical and biological sampling of our local water system. Despite the torrential downpour the students had an amazing time getting to participate in hands-on inquiry. Later our results were submitted to a searchable database that included results from other schools and other sites over time. For me this was the most powerful part of participating in the program. Students were then able to come up with their own research questions and compare their data to other places around the city. We hope to continue with this program every year, adding to the data to see how the health of the creek changes over time. We also hope to take it one step further next year and have students create action plans from their data on how they can help preserve the health of local waterbodies.