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Assessing Water Quality
Test Water Quality
Gathering data on these water quality indicators will help answer questions like:
- Water & Air Temperature: What temperature is needed for certain organisms to survive?
- Dissolved Oxygen - How much oxygen is available in the water for organisms to breathe and thrive?
- pH - How acidic or
- Nutrients - How much nitrogen and phosphorus is in the water, and how does this affect plant growth and animal health?
- Turbidity - How cloudy or clear is the water? How deep can sunlight go underwater? How does this affect plants and animals?
Follow the testing protocol of this citizen science project and share your data with scientists in Minnesota and around the world.
Analyze Existing Data on Minnesota Water Quality
Testing and recording water quality data over time is important for establishing a baseline, identifying and tracking patterns, measuring progress in improving water quality, and alerting citizens if the quality worsens. This data is reported to a global water quality database where we can track data trends.
Visit the GLOBE.gov data portal (below) to view and analyze Minnesota water quality data near you. Select "Choose Site by School" and search for Wilderness Inquiry to find your site.
did you know?
As an official partner of The GLOBE Program, participants on Wilderness Inquiry's CanoeMobile program conduct regular water quality tests on the rivers of Minnesota. The GLOBE Program is a worldwide community of students, teachers, scientists, and citizens working together to better understand, sustain, and improve Earth's environment at all scales. Learn more about how you can work with Wilderness Inquiry to collect and contribute water quality data to the GLOBE international data set.