Parts 5 - Living in a Waterway

This section of Understanding Healthy Waterways poses the question: What can aquatic life tell us about the health of our waterways?

• What lives in our waterways?
Waterways can contain a huge variety of organisms
such as frogs, fish, platypus ...
• But do you know about the macro-invertebrates?
• What can these fascinating critters tell us about the
health of waterways?
Some people say that learning about what lives in a
waterway and where it lives gives us the best
information about the health of our waterways.

Students will aim to explore the guiding question about this important measure of water quality through following a coherent learning sequence.
The sequence is based around the 5Es:

ENGAGE:  Students check their knowledge of
aquatic life and plan an excursion to a
local waterway.
EXPLORE:  Students develop a model of a waterway
showing and learn about classifying animals
and plants.
EXPLAIN:  Students research water animals and
their homes. They find out how animals tell us about
the health of a waterway.
ELABORATE:  Students go back to their local
waterway to assess its health using the information
and methods they have learnt through their study.
EVALUATE:  Students present a display of
information about their local waterway and plan how
it may be looked after into the future.

Each part of the Understanding Healthy Waterways package is in a pdf format.
You will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader application to read the pdf file format.
If you do not have the reader then follow this link to download Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Part 5 - Living in a Waterway (pdf file 5.5Mb)