As a part of her studies, Irene recently presented a paper at the SEE Change Conference on Environmental Education at the Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada. She found herself in the company of more than 350 delegates from primary, secondary and higher education institutions and non-governmental organisations around the world. They included a diverse group of participants such as primary and secondary school teachers, higher education academics, environmental activists and even children and teens.
Irene’s presentation was on the community-based monitoring (CBM) project, currently undertaken on the NWU’s campus in Vanderbijlpark and performed in conjunction with Rand Water as expert group, pre-service physical science teachers of the campus and Grade 10 physical science learners in the D7 and D8 districts of Gauteng.
The simplicity and small design of the proudly South African Somerset Educational Water Quality Test Kit attracted a lot of attention from other CBM specialists.
Irene’s study also looks at citizen science and community-based water monitoring. Her research recently took her to the Community-Based Environmental Monitoring Network at St Mary’s University in Halifax. Emma Wattie, project manager of the Network, took Irene on a tour of the facilities and showed her how such a network is run and how to link collected data with monitoring networks. She was also allowed access to a credited, certified online community-based monitoring (CBM) course.
“Canadians are known as world leaders in citizen science,” says Irene. “This visit did not disappoint and I gained a lot of insight in my research field.”
Irene Muller
