Pulse of the river reports

Schools Engagement Project 

The University of Western Sydney (UWS) has collaborated with the Longneck Lagoon and Brewongle Environmental Education Centre to develop engaging academic enrichment programs for school students. By tapping into university expertise and facilities and collaborating in program design and delivery, the Centres enhance their suite of offerings and knowledge. 

UWS engages with high school students while focusing on the environment, improving science teaching and attracting bright science-minded students to undertake further studies to protect the environment.

Students receive a briefing at the beginning of the day to understand what is river health, the issues of water quality and how to use the equipment. Students then take turns in groups going out on the river and taking water samples, both off the boats and from the edges of the river. Afterwords students return to the labs to study the samples to check the health (or pulse) of the river and analyse the data they have collected.

To see a brief snapshot of their data and what is means read the Pulse of the River report (PDF, 868.99 KB) (opens in a new window) produced in June 2014. Please note that this data has been collected by high school students (most were doing this for the first time) for educational purposes.