Category: waterwise
Water education opportunity
We are pleased to announce that St Emilie’s Catholic Primary School has been selected to be involved with the Golder Associates ‘Schools Water Education Program’.
The following materials and equipment will be donated and offered by Golder:
- 1 x YSI Water Quality Meter (measures pH, EC, TDS, temp, dissolved oxygen)
- 1 x Surface Water Sampler (extendable length)
- A visit from two Golder scientists/water engineers
- A presentation on lakes/wetlands, their importance to the environment and threats facing these water bodies
- A guided lesson on using the provided equipment and a job hazard/controls identification process
- Ongoing support with data interpretation over at least a 12 month period
This will be a wonderful opportunity for our students as we will be monitoring the water quality at Cromarty Gardens Reserve and sharing our findings with the local community.
We look forward to sharing more with you about this journey.
Wondering about water
The Year 2 students used their five senses to investigate the properties of a cup of water this week. They touched, smelt, listened, tasted and looked at water through a variety of hands on activities.
Here are a few photos of students using some of their investigative skills!
Nature of Science Community Expo
Mrs Cogger is keen to encourage all our budding scientists at St Emilie’s to attend this local event. Our students have entered the Design a Logo competition and the winning entry (yet to be announced) will feature in the Community Expo banner.
National Schools Tree Planting Day
On Friday schools across Australia celebrated National Schools Tree Planting Day. National Tree Day is a call to action for all Australians to put their hands in the earth and give back to their community. Each year, about 300,000 people volunteer their time to engage in environmental activities that educate individuals about the world around them. It was a day for our Year 4 students to venture outdoors and get to get their hands dirty and have some fun!
St Emilie’s is also proud to announce that we recently received a Woolworths Junior Landcare Grant. This money was used to purchase 10 large eucalyptus trees to replant in our school bushland. Mr Cogger purchased tree species suited to our bushland setting in the southern suburbs and also resistant to dieback.
Here are some photos of our Year 4 students enjoying the experience. Mrs Cogger and the students would also like to thank the parents who volunteered and assisted small groups of students to plant the trees.
Learning about our Earth’s resources
Recently the Year 4, 5 & 6 students have been learning about Earth & Space Science. As part of these studies, we had a visit from Earth Science Western Australia (ESWA) on the 16th of May. The Year 5 students took part in some hands-on activities and learned about how farmers can use chemistry to test rocks to help them improve their soil.
The Year 6 students learned about the different types of volcanoes and completed an investigation about the viscosity of their lava. Thanks to WASP, an initiative supported by Woodside and ESWA, for an exciting incursion.
Saving St Emilie’s Bushland
Our school bushland is enjoyed by our students and of great aesthetic value to our school environment. Mrs Cogger enjoys taking the students to the ‘bush classroom’ each term for various activities.
Unfortunately many years ago we found out that the trees had ‘dieback disease’. Since then we have embarked on an injection program every few years. In 2013 the Dieback Working Group came to the school and supervised the students with the injection program and provided all the materials and phosphate. Here is a photo of Alyssa and Bayley from Year 6 2013.
The next time the the trees were due to be treated was in 2016 and we had the help of Conservation Volunteers WA. Here is a photo of the team.
The trees in our bushland are due to be treated again. This is high priority if we have any chance of saving the most vulnerable species like the Banksias. As well as other species like Sheoak, Macrozamia, grass trees etc. Our bushland is also home to a family of Southern Boobook Owls, a Southern Brown Bandicoot, a Bobtail Goanna and other native species.
We have a BUSY BEE planned for Saturday 4th May commencing at 8am. Mrs Cogger would like to invite you to help ‘save our bushland’ by assisting with the injection program on Saturday morning. Chris (father of Kadyn Year 6 and Kiara Year 3) has kindly offered to hire the gear from Murdoch University and instruct us on how to inject the trees with phosphate. All we need now is a team of committed parents to assist us on the day. BYO drill, rubber gloves and goggles if you have any.
If you have would like to volunteer your time please register via this link
Link to Busy Bee registrations
If yo ave any questions about the dieback injector program please contact Mrs Cogger or Mr Munro.
Once our trees have been treated we will be able to commence our replanting program with the grant funds recently received from Woolworths Junior Landcare.
In anticipation of a productive BUSY BEE…
Seek a Leak Week
As a Waterwise School, we encourage all our families to participate in Seek a Leak Week. This activity can be done at home.
As part of our Seek a Leak Week Waterwise schools are encouraged to take the time to spot a leak with some activity plans.
Leaks can be extremely wasteful and costly. Did you know that a leaking toilet can result in nearly 3 buckets of wasted water a day!
Here is a link to the Waterwise website with details on how to run your own Seek a Leak at home.
Year 6 Aquatic Weeds Incursion
An extension to our commitment to Waterwise Schools is to look at protecting our water sources in WA. Recently Claire Hammersley from Murdoch University’s Environmental Assessment and Management came to St Emilie’s to present an incursion to the Year 6 students about aquatic weeds, in particular Amazon Frogbit.
Here are a few photos of the incursion. The students learned that Amazon Frogbit was recently declared as a ‘weed’ It was originally brought into WA as an aquarium plant but unfortunately has ended up taking over our waterways, depriving our native species of nutrients and oxygen.
The students learned about the different types of aquatic weeds and their habitats in a waterway.
The students had the opportunity to observe and investigate Amazon Frogbit and a native aquatic plant called Duck Weed.
Claire showed small groups of students the ‘catchment model’. The catchment model demonstrates how water travels on the landscape and shows how water pollution impacts the whole catchment and environment.
Waterwise Schools visit St Emilie’s
This week the students had a visit from Megan Brown from Waterwise Schools. Megan gave presentations to the students on a variety of Waterwise topics.
Megan explained about the important work of the Water Corporation and it’s role to provide clean and healthy water to Western Australians.
Megan showed us water ‘before’ it goes to the treatment plant.
And we compared the water to ‘cleaned’ water.
Megan told us how the dams used to provide Perth with enough drinking water but because of our drying climate we now have to source other water resources.
We learned how there is limestone in the ground around Perth. Limestone ‘holds’ water.
Megan showed us this fantastic model of the water cycle and we could see how the water soaks into the ground below.
We learned about the desalination process.
To conclude we learned that our drinking water comes from three sources – dam, ground and desalination.
The Year 5 students had an interesting presentation about how Aboriginal people valued and sourced water and the strategies that they used to locate sources.
The Year 6 students completed a quiz using Keepads.
We learned about the desalination process – how the water is processed using
- ultra filtration
- reverse osmosis and
- ultra violet light
This is the unit used in the reverse osmosis process.
The water goes through four stages before it is pumped into our water supply.
The Year 3 students participated in a drama activity about the water cycle.
The focus in the Year 4 session was to learn how leaves use and transport water. The students had the opportunity to use their Rotary microscopes.
We thank Megan from Waterwise Schools for sharing her Waterwise knowledge with us. The presentations were most informative.