A lanky teen crouches beside a creek to collect a water sample in a vial from the creek’s cool flow. He holds the sample up carefully next to a colour-coded chart to see how much Dissolved Oxygen is in the water here. Nearby, other students conduct similar tests to look at nitrates, phosphate and PH numbers.
It’s a spring morning in Invermere and these students are doing more than just science. They’re learning how to become stewards of the watershed that sustains their community.
This is Watershed Matters, a program that connects high school students with the complexities of watershed management. Through a mix of classroom learning and an immersive field trip, students learn about real-world issues that affect our water, from pollution to shared water resources, all within the context of a changing climate.
Watershed Matters is a Wildsight environmental education program created in collaboration with Living Lakes Canada. The goal of this program is to help foster an appreciation for sustainable watershed management. Under the guidance of a Wildsight educator, students begin to visualize the complexities of competing community values, the importance of water protections and how to meet the needs of water users fairly amidst changing water levels year-to-year. Through the field trip, students engage in hands-on data collection and learn how to analyze local water quality through chemical and biological testing of the water.
Watershed Matters doesn’t shy away from complexity. Instead, it leans into the issues and gives students the tools, context and confidence to discuss and explore challenges in watershed management. In classroom discussions, students questioned why certain water users were left lacking during a shared water resource activity. Others raised concerns about pollution impacts on local water users, while a number of students wondered who actually manages their community’s water resources and how those decisions are made. In one class, the teacher did a followup lesson that applied the learning to their own community by looking at local stakeholders, how water use is tracked and ended with a discussion on how decisions about water use in a river basin can be made fairly.
Students report that the program taught them valuable lessons: “Learning about the watershed helps us identify what water is healthy for us, animals and our environment, and gives us insight on pollution in water that may affect us more in the future,” reflects Rae, a Grade 12 student at South Slocan’s Mt. Sentinel Secondary School.
For teachers, the learning not only connects to curriculum requirements, it helps open their students’ eyes to issues that matter and can have an impact on their own lives.
“Most students see water as an infinite resource in BC. We have water restrictions from time-to-time, but rarely have students not been able to access drinking water,” says Trevor Marzke, a teacher who brought Watershed Matters into his classroom this year. “I think the realization that this resource is finite and shared might make them more aware of how precious it is.”
Ultimately, we hope Watershed Matters will inspire students to think critically about their local watershed, from where it’s sourced, to how it’s protected and who gets access to it. Because today’s students are tomorrow’s leaders, and water is a resource we all need to protect.
