Nearly 100 students to participate in activities at Birch Aquarium on November 8
SAN DIEGO, November 5, 2013—As part of the global World Water Monitoring Challenge, San Diego Coastkeeper will host nearly 100 international students for its 12th Annual World Water Monitoring Day at Birch Aquarium at Scripps on November 8. Students from Tijuana, Mexico, and Lakeside, Calif., will visit Birch Aquarium at Scripps to learn about water quality as they rotate through seven interactive, hands-on stations. Students will explore topics such as watersheds, ocean acidification, water conservation, geographic information systems, estuaries, agriculture, soil, and experiments about excess nutrients. Educators and volunteers from Birch Aquarium, San Diego County Office of Education’s Splash Lab and Green Machine and San Diego Coastkeeper will run the stations.
“World Water Monitoring Day gives students a chance to explore water quality issues in their communities and gives those issues a global perspective,” said Megan Baehrens, executive director at San Diego Coastkeeper. “We hope students leave with a basic understanding of how they have an impact—both positive and negative–on the health of our waterways and how pollution travels through our communities and reaches the ocean.”
In particular during World Water Monitoring Day, the children will learn about San Diego’s Areas of Special Biological Significance located off La Jolla’s shore and what it means to protect water quality at these biologically unique areas of the state’s coast.
“One interactive station will ask children to test water quality in different jars of fresh water that have varying amounts of garden fertilizer in them,” said Travis Pritchard, San Diego’s Coastkeeper’s lab manager. “This very visual demonstration helps students connect the seemingly harmless routines that they have at home to negative effects in their local waters and understand what changes they can make to protect the water.”
Friday’s event will bring attention to World Water Monitoring Challenge, which is an international outreach program to build public awareness and involvement in protecting water resources around the world. It takes place from March 22-December 31. Schools and groups are invited to participate through their own water monitoring activity during this season.
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SAN DIEGO COASTKEEPER: Founded in 1995, San Diego Coastkeeper protects and restores fishable, swimmable and drinkable waters in San Diego County. Visit us online at https://www.sdcoastkeeper.org.
