Unit 1: Introduction to River Water Monitoring

Welcome to the introductory unit of the Green Learn 2 Earn – Water Monitors course. This unit will help you navigate through the course and introduce you to what water monitoring is all about. You will learn a little about the citizen science tools that you can use to check the quality of water in your area. The idea is to help you explore how water issues affect your community, and how to get others involved.

By the end of this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Understand how poor water quality can affect your health, your community, and the environment.
• Learn what your community can do to keep water clean and safe.
• Find out what tools and methods you can use to monitor water in your area.
• Think about your own role in protecting water and how you can speak up for better water care in your community.

This course is for anyone who’s curious about how to look after their local water and wants to help out. By the time we’re done, you’ll have a good starting point and know what to do next to keep your water safe and clean.

Here is a little bit of information about how the course will work:

• Before you start the unit, you will have a Pre-course task to do. This is important for us, because we are using this task to see how much you learn from doing the full course. Please don’t stress or worry too much about “getting the right answer” for this task – the point of it is to see how much you know BEFORE you do the course. We will ask you to do the exact same task at the end of the course too. 

• This unit contains 5 short videos. The videos have also been saved as PDF documents that you can download and print, or save them, so that you have the information as notes. 

• At the end of the unit is a quiz so you can test yourself to see how much you have remembered and understood from the videos. You will need to get ALL the quiz questions correct to complete this unit, but don’t worry you can redo the quiz as many times as it takes to get 100%. It is a good idea to write down the questions you get wrong; and then go back to those lessons and find out what the correct answers are, before you attempt the quiz again. This is a great way to learn!

• There is an assignment for this unit. Please upload your assignment to either the Facebook page or tag it on Instagram using the tag given in the assignment information.  The Facebook and Instagram pages are also places where you can connect with other people doing this course, get feedback and comments on your assignments, and help with your learning journey. Remember that at all times we interact respectively with each other, and that the pages are for water quality and course related discussions only (NO SPAM).