We know there are passionate individuals and groups in the community who care deeply about the quality of their local environment. Providing them with tools to gather data on the state of their environment is an excellent way to foster engagement. However, the key to sustaining that engagement is offering technical information in an accessible, non-technical manner. This ethos led to the creation of the Streamed and Nature Agents programmes, which not only empower communities to collect data but also present it in a way that enables them to understand and take action.
Enabling non-technical people to collect and understand technical information can be challenging, which is why we have leveraged the combined expertise of our science, GIS and science interpretation teams. Our multidisciplinary technical team collaborates to plan and design the process for gathering, analysing, presenting and storing data, while our engagement team focuses on creating a user-friendly learning experience. The result is a set of tools that are easy to use, with information presented in a way that non-technical individuals can understand and use to prioritise actions for improving the environment for everyone.
Streamed: bringing community-based water clarity monitoring onlineEOS Ecology
‘Streamed’, the brainchild of our Principal Scientist Shelley McMurtrie, was developed in response to increasing public concern about the poor water quality in streams and rivers around Aotearoa New Zealand, and the growing number of community groups collecting data that wasn’t being utilised. It provides communities with a platform to collect water clarity data in a consistent way right across the country. Our team, through rule-based automated processes, provides additional interpretation of the data, which is presented via maps and dashboards to give viewers an evidence-based understanding of their local freshwater environments. Our vision is to:
· provide easy-to-use data collection tools;
· ensure consistent interpretation of submitted data;
· enable informed decisions through easy-to-understand data visualisations; and
· make water quality information accessible.
The online ‘Streamed’ tool is a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based, data-driven site developed inhouse at EOS Ecology. It allows users to upload their site-specific monitoring data. Users can see a range of information about their monitoring sites via dashboards and maps – e.g., latest water clarity reading, average clarity reading, all readings over time, dominant land use, dominant topography, catchment boundary, waterway size, etc. Users can also compare their sites to others. The associated guides (with clear instructions) are at hand to help users understand what they’re looking at, and what it all means – e.g., how land use and topography can influence suspended sediment in a waterway.
Advanced data management as part of the Nature Agents – Ngā Kaitaunaka Taiao programmeMinistry of Education & EOS Ecology
‘Nature Agents – Ngā Kaitaunaka Taiao’ engages students in real science and provides hands-on freshwater science learning experiences for schools. In addition to the hands-on training in how to monitor their local awa using scientific methods, we have also integrated GIS (Geographic Information Systems) into our programme to further increase our coverage of the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) curriculum. GIS provides the website that allows students to enter their monitoring data online, then immediately view the results via maps and infographics on dashboards. These dashboards allow them to analyse their data and draw their own conclusion about cause and effect of issues within their local stream, and freshwater systems in general. Our GIS work for this was internationally recognised at the 2019 ESRI User Group Conference, winning the ‘NZ Storytelling with Maps’ competition.
We guide students, and teachers, through an end-to-end process that allows them to understand the flow of data through to information. This starts with the initial data capture, takes them through the importance of accurate data input, and shows them how that information takes on meaning through our interactive online maps and dashboards. This workflow gives the students a grounding in online data management and interpretation, that is designed to provide a key connection to the ‘technology’ and ‘math’ component of the STEAM curriculum.
