Enviroscape Model

Enviro-scape Model – Water Inquiry

As part of our learning about water, on Tuesday the 4^th of August the senior school at Gore Main had a visit from Pat Hoffman.  Pat works for Environment Southland.  She came along to talk to us about pollution in the Mataura River.  She brought along a 3D Enviro-scape model which helped us visualise how pollution occurs in our environment and how it easily gets into the waterways.  It was fun building up a 3D landscape with towns, cars, dirt, grass, trees and animals and then having a rain storm with real water!   We observed how oil and detergents flow into our river through the storm water drains after it rains and how dirt runs off unplanted hills into rivers causing brown unhealthy water.  We talked about ideas that could be implemented to stop pollution, such as planting more trees on hills or digging holes before the river so that pollution could flow into them instead of entering the waterways.  We enjoyed the Enviro-scape model and it was a different way to learn about the serious issue of pollution in our waterways.

Did you know that soil is the number one pollutant in our waterways? 

Room 8