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World Water Monitoring Day Activity Guide for Virginia

 

This on-line Activity Guide for Virginia will help you plan a safe and educational World Water Monitoring Day event on your school grounds, or in a nearby park.

 

Your school or community can hold a World Water Monitoring Day event, and be part of an international effort to better understand and care for our streams, rivers, lakes, bays and oceans. Teachers: Participation in the program helps your school provide a meaningful watershed experiences for students! A World Water Monitoring event can be an important outreach tool for communities as they strive to be better stewards of their watersheds.

 

World Water Monitoring Day was established to increase public awareness and involvement in the protection of water quality. As part of this celebration, citizen scientists and students worldwide monitor surface waters for temperature, pH, clarity, and dissolved oxygen using simple easy-to-use test kits. Monitoring data are collected between March 22 and December 31, and are shared on the WWMD web site (deadline for data submission is December 31 each year).

 

Virginia’s involvement in the WWMD

Since 2003 the Virginia Water Monitoring Council (VWMC) has worked in partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and others to purchase monitoring kits for distribution at no cost to science classes, civic organizations, and others in Virginia who do not have monitoring equipment. By offering this service, the VWMC helps introduce the importance of water monitoring and management of our water resources to groups not already involved in this field.

 

The Virginia Water Monitoring Council would like to thank Altria for financial support, and Clean Virginia Waterways, the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay and other VWMC members for making this guide possible.