Teacher preparation:

Overarching learning goal:

Students recongise the relationship between schoolyard waste and healthy waterways.
Students identify strategies for improving school stormwater systems.
Students use maps to understand the flow of stormwater at their school and in the local community.

Teacher content information: Many schools have large areas of hard surfaces like car parks, basketball courts, assembly areas or concrete quadrangles. These hard surfaces increase the amount of run-off after precipitation (rain, hail, sleet and snow). This run-off, called stormwater, can carry sediment, oil, leaves and rubbish with it into the nearest school stormwater drain. These drains form part of a local stormwater network, which lead to the nearest waterway without the water being treated.

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You may need to clarify the difference between stormwater and sewage with your students prior to completing this audit. Use this factsheet to help explain this difference: Factsheet - Sewage or stormwater?

Your students will need access to a map of the local area (your council should have a copy - ideally the map will have contour lines) and an A3 map of the school grounds (your school may have one you can copy). If you don't have a hard copy map for either, consider printing the maps from Google Maps and enlarging them using a photocopier.

Student and classroom organisation:

Step 1.

Begin this activity by clarifying with students what they understand stormwater to be:

Where does stormwater come from?
Where does stormwater go?
What are the problems associated with stormwater (e.g. flooding, pollutants being carried to local waterways)?

Step 2.

Working in groups, ask students to look at a copy of a map of your local area, using either a hard copy from your local council (ideally the map should have contour lines). Ask students to look for places where they think stormwater from their school might go. This will usually be the closest waterway like a creek, river or ocean. Students should look for:

Manufactured waterways (e.g. drains); and
Natural waterways (e.g. creeks, rivers, wetlands).

If the map has contours (lines showing areas of equal height above sea level), this will help show which direction the water flows. Ask students to mark on the map where they think the stormwater from their school goes.

Engage students in a class discussion around their nominated waterways:

Has anyone visited these waterways? Can they report on the visual appearance of this waterway, particularly following a storm event:

Does it look clean?
What kinds of rubbish can be seen there?

For students who haven’t visited this waterway ask them to speculate on what types of rubbish could be expected to flow into the waterway, given its location:

Where does stormwater that flows into this waterway come from?
What types of rubbish do you think you might find in this waterway after a storm event?

Step 3.

Auditing your school’s stormwater drainage system - Ask each group to head into the school year to look for stormwater drains. Each drain should be marked on the map using a different number. Students will then need to use this number to show the drain on the audit worksheet and the correlating information on the worksheet will need to be completed.

Step 4.

When finished, ask each group to prepare a presentation on the current state of the stormwater system at your school, including suggestions for improvement. As groups present ask a scribe to write the suggestions for improvement on the board. Once all groups have presented, vote for the three most suitable or feasible solutions using a sticker voting system (students put three stickers next to their first choice, two next to their second choice and one next to their third).

Take action

Explain to students that these three strategies can be included into your School Water Management Plan (a plan which shows water use issues in schools and suggests actions to help increase water efficiency and reduce stormwater pollution). However, each strategy will first need to be justified in terms of costs and benefits. Ask groups to work together to create a one-page report that describes the costs and benefits of each strategy. Ask students to consider:

Environmental costs and benefits;
Financial costs and benefits; and
Time required for establishing strategies and for maintenance.

Ideas for improving stormwater quality

Project	Description	Resources
Clean Up Australia Day	Clean Up Australia Day is a simple way you can take action to clean up, fix up and conserve our prized Australian environment.	Clean Up Australia Day
Water Education	Find out what water education programs are available in your state.	School programs and community involvement
Look after waterways in your community	Contact your local council to find out what projects around waterways are being run in your area. They may have ideas about how you and your students can get involved.	Your local Council
Keep your school clean	Stop pollution entering the stormwater system by keeping your school clean.	Your students!
The day of...	Get involved with a National or International Day of...	e.g. SeaWeek, International Day for Biological Diversity, World Turtle Day, National Biodiversity Month, National Bilby Day, World Habitat Day.

Check out the Cool Australia Water Toolbox and Waste Toolbox for more resources.

AuSSI Stormwater Audit (Secondary)

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