Monitoring River Health

Article by Ms Jessica Miller

Monitoring River Health

Year 11 VCE Environmental Science students visited Ecolinc Environment Centre in Bacchus Marsh in Week 1 to learn about monitoring ecosystems and impacts upon them caused by human activity.

Students used high tech stereo dissecting microscopes to view and identify macroinvertebrates from the Ecolinc wetland. They were then able to analyse the species diversity and abundance of the wetland and use modelling programs to determine the interactions between species in the wetland.

This activity is directly related to the current topic in Environmental Science introducing systems thinking as a framework for exploring relationships in environmental systems by examining inputs and outputs, components and structures that may be visible to the human eye.

Students were introduced to sensitivity scores that relate the species of macroinvertebrate present in the wetland to their tolerance to, or sensitivity to, pollution and disturbance.

All of this was a fantastic practical background to their major assessment this term that will look at establishing a monitoring program in the local area near the school and collecting and analysing that data from that monitoring.

Jessica Miller Science Teacher

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