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The study site - Georges River Sylvania
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Australian Government Community Coastcare Grant for making funds available for the teacher professional learning day and subsequent student field work days. This grant helps to cover the cost of the ferry trip, science equipments, speicies for dissection, water quality testing chemicals and teacher relief for the class teacher - one per class. The only cost for the day is $20 per team to further offset the cost of water quality testing equpiment, consumables and the ferry trip.
Grime Scene Investigation targets one or two primary school teams of talented Stage 3 science and technology students and requires them to undertake a planned set of pre visit tasks followed by fieldwork at Sylvania Public School. The students take on the roles of real scientists assuming the roles of an ecologist, biologist, water quality chemist and environmental scientist. Their research will be based on an environmental consultancy scenario. The investigation covers both pre visit tasks and fieldwork, leading the teams to report on the state of the environment for the fictional 'River City Council'.
The Grime Scene Investigationproject is based on Quality Teaching Principles and promotes student investigations into the local environment and environment management issues. This will target catchments, estuaries and ecosystems in highly urbanized areas. The integration of Technology and Environmental Education Policy objectives, are key components of the project.
Pre-visit activities:
To be adequately prepared to undertake the field study component of the whole program, teachers need to allow three weeks for a web based research task for each team member, and for general organisation of the students into their scientific roles. To view these pre-visit activities, please click here.
The scientific team/s (the 4 students from your school who will assume the roles of water quality chemist, ecologist, environmental scientist and biologist) will be engaged in a series of 'hands-on' activities including:
* viewing and recording plankton under a microscope
* undertaking a fish dissection
* testing water quality
* classifying species commonly found in estuaries and studying their adaptation
* focusing on environmental issues in the estuary
Studenst will study the landuse along the river foreshores during hte orientation curise of the Georges River.
Follow up activities:
There is also a comprehensive follow-up, using the results of the investigations in the estuary. Teams report on their findings, which then can be delivered as a powerpoint, vodcast or in other forms of media.
Some reports from last year's students are shown below: "Scientific teams" - 2008
| Alfords Point PS Team 1 A PowerPoint presentation Five Dock PS A PowerPoint presentation |
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| Ferncournt PS Team 1 A PowerPoint presentation Ferncourt PS Team 2 A PowerPoint presentation |
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| Marton PS A PowerPoint presentation Miranda PS A PowerPoint presentation |
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| Orange Grove PS A quicktime movie |
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