The Importance Of Monitoring Water

By Eliza Hallabeck

PerkinElmer representatives from Shelton visited with Head O’ Meadow third grade students on Wednesday, May 26, to share information about monitoring water.

Fred Rubino gave a presentation to the students to introduce them to the three tests they would be performing on water from near the school.

“It’s very good for water quality,” said Mr Rubino. “Plus, it also brings awareness to the kids that they can maintain water quality, because in about 20 or 30 years or so, they are going to be the ones who are in charge of all of it.”

According to the World Water Monitoring Day’s website (www.WorldMonitoringDay.org), the program is an international outreach effort to bring public awareness and involvement in protecting water sources. World Water Monitoring Day is celebrated on September 18, but water monitoring can be done March through December as a part of the event.

PerkinElmer is a sponsor of the project, because the company creates products that perform more advanced water quality testing.

Individuals can become involved in World Water Monitoring Day, according to Mr Rubino, and the students’ results from his visit will be added to results on the website.

“There were only nine sites in Connecticut last year [that tested water for the event],” said Mr Rubino. “So we are really trying to expand it this year, and looking to get a lot more details and a lot more information.”

Students later broke into groups to perform three tests on water samples to determine weather they were safe for fish and plants.

“Fish will die if it is bad,” said third grader Teddy Jones.

Teddy also said he thought the presentation was “cool.”

Third grader Rory Tiesler was more concerned about the safety of drinking water.

“If you drink bad water, it could make you sick,” said Rory as his group worked to test one sample of water.

Sandra Rasmussen, also from PerkinElmer, said the presentation came to Head O’ Meadow in part because her daughter is a third grade student at the school.

“Through our partnership with the Water Environment Federation we sponsor World Water Monitoring Day,” said Ms Rasmussen.

Each PerkinElmer representative worked with groups of students to help them test the water samples.

“It’s very important,” Ms Rasmussen said, “because water impacts everything that we do. As a globe, water is, unfortunately, becoming more and more scarce, so it is really important for us to do everything we can to protect water quality throughout the world.”