Water Monitoring & Education Programs
BBEMA (in partnership with the PE Dept of Education and Early Childhood Learning) continues to engage teachers and students from regional schools in the implementation of 3 water based education, outreach and monitoring programs - designed to protect PEI streams and surrounding ecology.
Though our Water Education Program, BBEMA continues to build the capacity of both youth and community (within all language sectors) to better understand the aquatic ecosystem, particularly surface and ground water quality issues and to take positive action to sustain this resource for the future. Each of the Water Education and Monitoring programs offer provincial curriculum based environmental education opportunities in both English and Acadian French, as well as a specialized Adopt/Fish Habitat Mi’kmaq language pilot. Additionally, the Mi’kmaq Fish Habitat Watch Out program addresses scientific learning in partnership with traditional teachings of fishing practices, need for preservation of fishing grounds, highlighting the importance of water to the Mi’kmaq people and their relationship to the land.
Since the initiation of our Water Monitoring and Education program in 2007, over 1750 student volunteers have participated in water quality monitoring activities - adopting over 20 water quality monitoring stream sites, conducting fish habitat assessments and helping local landowners develop stream side management plans.
If your school or community group is interested in participating in one of BBEMA's Water Education programs please contact us and we will get you started.
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Discover Your River: Grades 1-2-3
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Discover your River - initiates young children (ages 6 to 8) to the world of rivers and streams near their home and makes them aware of the importance of this ecosystem. The project coordinator is working with local Elementary schools to bring a wide variety of river–related activities and stories into the classroom, supplemented by slides, cassettes and a walk to the river.
Adopt-a-River: Grades 8-9-10
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Adopt-a-River -targets ages 10-15, involves youth in observation of riverine habitat, characterization of water quality in a particular waterway, monitoring of both physicochemical and biological parameters, and introduction to the concept of ecological indicators
The aim of the project's two components, the study of benthic macroinvertebrates and that of water quality, is to get students involved in their environment. The components take two distinct approaches but work towards one objective: to make the young people familiar with and teach them how to take care of their rivers.
In the water quality component, the students study the very essence of a river: water. Through a physical-chemical study, they gather data on temperature, pH, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, coliform bacteria and alkalinity, which are good indicators of a river's condition.
Benthic macroinvertebrates are creatures without backbones that live on the bottom of a watercourse. Examples include insect larvae, molluscs, crayfish, leeches and worms. These organisms are particularly sensitive to changes in the chemical and physical make-up of their habitats, making them excellent indicators of a river's overall environmental quality. Information on the variety and number of specimens from various invertebrate groups collected will give us an indicator of a river's health.
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Fish Habitat.....Watch Out!: Grades 8-10
The Fish Habitat......Watch out! project offers school students to study the fish habitat through observation of a local watercourse and the organization of a fishing activity. They will learn the important biological parameters of the fish habitat and be initiated to various methods of observations.
Designed for to expand upon the Adopt-a-River program, Fish Habitat Watch Out extends the students ecological learning and monitoring to include biological parameters important to fish habitat (shelter, current speed, erosion, and plant canopy). Students use data obtained from the Adopt-a-River program in combination with new parameters; stability of riverbanks, shoreline vegetation to assess the quality of habitat for the section of river (stream) that they have adopted. The students also take part in a scientific fishing activity, which gives them a chance to understand the fish that live in the habitat they are studying. As with the Adopt-a-River program, the class activity concludes with the students taking some sort of concrete action to protect, conserve or restore fish habitat. The student’s action is based in some way on data they gather. The action can take the form of a clean-up, a tree planting day, the development of proposed management plan for the landowner, or an article in the local newspaper. When all the program steps have been carried out, the students write a report which is published to the CVRB Water Monitoring Youth Portal Website.
Participating Schools include:
English School Board:
- Three Oaks High School
- Kinkora Regional High School
- Summerside Intermediate School
- Gulf Shore Consolidated
- Somerset Elementary School
- Queen Elizabeth Elementary School
- Montaque Intermediate School
French Immersion - la Commission scolaire de langue française de l’Île-du-n Prince-Édouard:
- l'Ecole St. Augustine
- M. E. Collaghan School
- l'Ecole-sur-Mer
- l'Ecole-Evangeline
- l'Ecfole Belle Cloche
Mi'kmaq First Nations
- John J. Sark Memorial School – Lennox Island First Nation