Today we have Rangikura school coming down to test the local waterway here in Bothamley Park, this is the Keneperu stream.

Some of the creatures that we will be showing them today is eels and some Whitebait species, the Inanga.

Today they’ll be coming down and testing the stream quality with conductivity meters and clarity tubes. They will be doing temperature checks to see how the water quality is for our native creatures.

They’ll also be looking at macroinvertebrates, so basically all the food that the fish like to eat.

Ultimately, it’s about kaitiakitanga, about caring for ourselves and our environment, and the impact that we have on our environment. In order to know how to care for our environment, we have to learn about the environment first. Looking at what is healthy, what is unhealthy and then from that we can make our choices in what we need to do.

The learning that we’ve been seeing today is really engaging all of our students, so looking around at all the groups, everybody’s having a turn, everyone’s getting involved. They’re sharing their learning together, and learning heaps.

Good to know if it’s alright or if it’spolluted, and it’s good to know how to look after it.

Today what we’ve got the kids doing is some macroinvertebrate samples. They’re taking kicknets down to the river, stirring up the bottom of the water, washing all that sediment into the nets, sort of seeing what we find under the rocks. If they’re finding a lot of stuff like worms, maybe midge larvae, crane fly larvae, it kind of indicates that the health of the stream isn’t particularly good.

Everything we’re finding is sort of, adds into those puzzle pieces indicating whether stream health is healthy or kind of you know a bit more dirty, a bit more polluted.

It was super cool. We learnt about the clarity.

It was very awesome.

We also look at human impacts, so that they can then take that knowledge and go out to the community and do an action project and get their community involved and keep it beautiful for other people to enjoy themselves as well as the community.

Teaching our tamariki about healthy streams

Mountains to Sea Wellington runs immersive programmes to help kids learn about nearby streams, rivers and oceans.

Last updated:

It was an exciting day for the students at Rangikura school. They were going on a field trip to the Upper Keneperu stream to learn what makes up a healthy aquatic ecosystem.

Mountains to Sea Wellington runs educational programmes like this across the greater Wellington region. Their goal is to teach kids how to take care of their local rivers, streams and oceans.

The children from Rangikura school ran some experiments at Upper Keneperu stream. They checked the water quality with conductivity meters, clarity tubes and thermometers.

The students were also asked to collect macroinvertebrate samples. This simply meant dragging up some dirt from the bottom of the stream to see what kind of bugs and larva were there.

Through these tests, the students learned how to tell if the water was polluted or not. Lots of worms and midge larva would show that the steam was not very healthy.

Finally, the students got to see eels and whitebait fish up close.

The team at Mountains to Sea hopes that these first-hand experiences give young people a passion for taking care of the environment.

The group also leads educational programmes in harbours and the ocean.

We are proud to support this kaupapa through the Community Environment Fund.

Learn more about the Community Environment Fund. 

Learn more about Mountains to Sea.