Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News
The Newsletter of the Great Lakes
Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund
Volume 123, Number 2 • Early Spring 2005
Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat NewsThe Newsletter of the Great Lakes
|
|
The annual Grey Bruce Children’s Water Festival is a fun and educational event that gives grade four students hands-on learning about the importance of water resources in everyday life.Through over 45 activity centres, operated by volunteers, students in Grey and Bruce Counties in the Lake Huron watershed learn about the careful use, conservation and protection of water and water sources and the role water plays in the environment.
By combining hands-on, interactive activities with messages relevant to their daily lives, students will soak up knowledge of the properties, uses, connections and importance of water. The key themes of the activities are water conservation,water protection, water science, water technology, and changing attitudes. One of the activities is described below. Protection - Treating trash: How does a modern landfill operate? Students explore for themselves how we treat our trash today and compare this to the unsafe practices of the past. A landfill model provides a breakdown of the different stages of the treatment process and demonstrates the effect on groundwater if our trash is not disposed of properly.
The 2005 event will be held from September 26 to 29. Students will be motivated to become better water stewards in their classrooms, at home and in their communities.
The Grey Bruce Children’s Water Festival was launched in 2001, spearheaded by the Bruce Resource Stewardship Network, the Grey County Forest Stewardship Network and the Sydenham Conservation Foundation, along with 14 other community organizations. It is now one of the 140 Ontario Nature member groups. The water festival is organized and delivered by a volunteer committee comprised of 18 community organizations and environmental agencies. The event is fully funded through the generosity of sponsors and requires over 600 volunteers.
For more information visit www.waterfestival.ca
The quality of Lake Huron’s water and beaches has come into question in recent years. Beach postings, algal fouling, incidences of dead birds and fish washing onto beaches have contributed to the public’s perception that something is wrong with Lake Huron’s coastal environment. Government agencies have collected various segments of information related to environmental quality concerns along the coast, but the data collected has often been limited to snapshots in time, whereas local conditions can change quickly. A study prepared in 2004 by the Lake Huron Centre for Coastal Conservation indicated that Lake Huron’s near shore water quality has had a long history of bacterial and nutrient impairments, and that large gaps existed in the data that public agencies had been collecting in beach areas. At a water quality forum held at Goderich on Lake Huron in the summer of 2002, local residents endorsed the Coastal Centre’s proposal to establish a community- based monitoring program.
In 2005, the Coastal Centre will develop a volunteer monitoring and stewardship program called “Coast Watchers.” This is an initiative designed to engage the community to take an active part in both observing and helping to improve the quality of our near shore waters through individual actions. Through Coast Watchers, community volunteers are trained to observe the coast and record shoreline conditions; to initiate beach clean-ups where debris is both qualified and quantified; and where community workshops and information resources are organized, to help inform and educate people about best coastal stewardship practices. Through Coast Watchers, volunteers are the eyes and ears of the lakeshore. With volunteers collecting information methodically and consistently along the lakeshore, it will be possible to track conditions and trends.
CoastWatchers is an opportunity to involve coastal residents in observing the conditions of their local beaches and comparing conditions with other parts of the lake. The quality of the lakeshore is coming under increasing scrutiny by the public, and citizens are becoming interested in participating actively in improving its quality.We see Coast Watchers as a way for the community to become more vigilant about lakeshore quality and active in coastal stewardship.
contributed by Geoff Peach,
The Lake Huron Centre for Coastal Conservation
(519) 523-4478 • geoff.peach@lakehuron.on.ca
Lake Erie Basin - Ontario Side Advisor |