Edstream : Edstream Edition 11
Edstream Edition 11
EdStream
Edition 11, October 2007
Keep up to date with Melbourne Water's range of VELS-friendly education programs, curriculum materials and grants.
In this edition:
- Water: Our vital resource
- 2007 Melbourne Water Young Watercare Grants Update
- A Rubbish Free Lunch Challenge Well Done!
- Green Power: Generating electricity from sewage
- Vermont Primary School: Leading the way with water conservation
- Be a Waterwatcher in the Werrribee Plains
- Protect, conserve and get involved!
Water: Our vital resource
Melbourne Water and The Age newspaper is celebrating National Water Week with the publication of our fourth educational poster in our water series - Water: our vital resource (15 October, Education Age)
With a recent CSIRO report predicting a future of higher temperatures and lower rainfall across the land, this colourful pictorial will show what steps are being taken to secure Australia’s water supply into the future.
Earlier this year, Melbourne Water and The Age, Education Unit produced:
- Inside the water cycle (March 2007)
- Water, the environment and climate change (June 2007)
- Our Yarra (August 2007)
For more information about these educational posters, visit www.education.theage.com.au
More information: www.education.theage.com.au
2007 Melbourne Water Young Watercare Grants update
Successful 2007 Young Watercare Grants projects will be announced shortly. Schools will receive their letters and the list of projects will be published at our website melbournewater.com.au.
Thank you to the schools who applied. We look forward to working together to ensure a sustainable water future.
Go to Melbourne Water
A Rubbish Free Lunch Challenge Well Done!
Melbourne Water was pleased to support this important Department of Education and Early Childhood Development and Sustainability Victoria event, and congratulates the winners and all participating schools.
Your efforts go a long way in helping us all work together to keep litter and pollution out of our stormwater system and our rivers, creeks and bays. Thank you!
Green Power: Generating electricity from sewage
It is reported that, per capita, Australians are the highest contributors of greenhouse gases in the world, despite having increasing access to energy saving technologies. Our electricity, gas and petrol consumption have a range of serious environmental consequences that can be mitigated only by reducing the amount of energy we use, and switching to renewable energy sources.
At Melbourne Water, we are committed to doing more to ensure sustainable energy use in our operations – we aim to have zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2018.
A core responsibility for us is treating sewage to strict EPA standards. This is an energy intensive process, but Melbourne Water has found a way to utilise green energy, through one of the by-products of sewage treatment.
Green energy, in the form of biogas (sometimes known as sludge gas) has been used at our Eastern Treatment Plant (in Bangholme) since its commissioning in 1975, to supply additional energy during emergencies and electrical maintenance. Hence, the use of renewable energy is not unusual.
However, a new $46 million Eastern Green Energy Project at the Eastern Treatment Plant, will improve the efficiency of the plant’s operation, and provide the ability to increase the production of green energy to meet 50 per cent of the plant’s electricity needs.
Schools are invited to take our educational tours to learn more about this new multi-million dollar Eastern Green Energy Project contributes to the sustainable energy use at the Eastern Treatment Plant.
Sludge collected during the sewage treatment process is pumped to large enclosed tanks, called digesters. It is the anaerobic (without oxygen) digestion of sludge by bacteria in the digesters, which produces biogas.
For more information about sewage treatment tours at the plant, visit melbourne.water.com.au/education.
If you can’t make it in person to the Eastern Treatment Plant, then visit the plant virtually.
Eastern Treatment Plant – essential facts
The Eastern Treatment Plant plays an important role in maintaining public health in Melbourne. Melbourne’s population of 3.6 million produce on average 900 million litres of sewage every day.
The plant treats 40 per cent or 370 million litres of this daily load. Sewage is treated to a secondary standard (rubbish and other suspended solids are filtered from the water, organic matter broken down by micro-organisms, and nutrients removed from the water) and disinfected with chlorine.
A $300 million upgrade of the plant was announced in October 2006, for the tertiary treatment of sewage to a Class A recycled water standard. This means that up to 135,000 million litres of Class A recycled water will be available for new housing estates and industry by 2012.
Go to ETP Explorer
Complete student activity
Vermont Primary School: Leading the way with water conservation
Vermont Primary School is the first Melbourne metropolitan school to receive their Water – Learn it! Live it! silver accreditation, after first receiving their bronze accreditation in October 2006.
Working in partnership with Yarra Valley Water, the school made a formal commitment to the program, set out to create units of work on water conservation with at least one year level to enrich their existing curriculum, and celebrated National Water Week. Teachers from the school attended professional development sessions to enrich their knowledge, and together with their students, communicated their learnings to their local community.
To attain their silver accreditation, Vermont Primary implemented water conservation into the curriculum of various year levels, monitored their water consumption and made changes to reduce their consumption among other things.
Mr Tony Kelly, Managing Director of Yarra Valley Water said it was fantastic that Vermont Primary School is leading the way in water conservation.
“The Water – Learn it! Live it! program is about creating fun and interactive ways to shape knowledge, attitudes and behaviours on sustainable water conservation – so that it becomes a life-long habit,” he said. “It’s fantastic that Vermont Primary has taken up the challenge and I would encourage other schools in the area to register and help create a future generation of water savers.
“With increasing population and climate change, it is essential that our next generation develops sustainable water habits. We need them to learn early on how to use the water we have in the most efficient way possible,” he said.
The program, Water – Learn it! Live it! was developed by Melbourne’s water authorities (City West Water, South East Water, Yarra Valley Water and Melbourne Water) to teach students from years prep to ten about water conservation. It forms part of the State Government’s Our Water, Our Future long term water plan. This free education program, provides teachers with resources to develop fun and interesting ways to integrate water conservation into their teachings. Over 160 metropolitan schools have now committed to the program.
For more information about how schools can be part of the Water – Learn it! Live it! program, contact your local metropolitan water retailer.
|
Water – Learn it! Live it! Team |
More information: Our Water, Our Future |
Be a Waterwatcher in the Werribee Plains
The Werribee Plains community recently celebrated the launch of a new $715,000 Waterwatch program in the Werribee Plains region. Highlights included students from Melton Christian College canoeing on the Werribee River, the Wurundjeri Aboriginal community welcoming Waterwatch to the land and waterways, and Altona students presenting on the state of the waterways in their area.
Wurundjeri elder, Bill Nicholson, spoke of the importance of rivers like the Werribee River played in the everyday life of the local indigenous people. He explained that ‘Werribee’ means ‘spine’ in the Wautharong language, signifying the river’s role in ‘supporting’ the community.
Melbourne Water General Manager of Waterways, Chris Chesterfield said the new free program would build on the success of the parent Waterwatch program, which saw more than 40,000 people from business, the community and local schools participating in 1,000 Waterwatch activities at more than 300 sites in 2006/07.
A partnership between Melbourne Water, the Department of Sustainability and Environment (Vision for Werribee Plains), the Natural Heritage Trust, and local government, this program is seeking new Waterwatchers in the community, in business and industry, as well as local schools, to get involved in monitoring, protecting and conserving the health of rivers and creeks in the Werribee Plains region.
The information gathered by Waterwatchers help determine what action Melbourne Water can take to improve the health of waterways in the region. Students from Little River Primary School, at the foot of the You Yangs, have found through their investigations, that salinity is a major issue affecting Little River. The students then presented to Melbourne Water, which included recommendations of how the health of Little River could be improved.
Schools, community groups and businesses interested in becoming a Werribee Plains Waterwatcher may contact their respective local coordinator.
The region of Werribee Plains extends from Maribyrnong River to Little River along the western coast of Port Phillip Bay and up to Melton and Moorabool shire zones.
Those interested in the free Waterwatch education programs in other regions in Melbourne may contact their local coordinator at melbournewater.com.au/waterwatch.
To learn more about how you can help to protect the health of rivers, creeks, wetlands and bay, visit melbournewater.com.au/rivers.
|
Werribee Plains Waterwatch Team |
More information: Melbourne Water |
Protect, Conserve and Get Involved!
Celebrate life-giving water during National Water Week next week (October 21 – 27).
Check out the list of activities you and your family may participate at www.nationalwaterweek.org.au.
Or, consider visiting the Water Smart Home exhibition at Melbourne Museum or the first event of its kind – the Save Water Save Energy expo at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre (October 19 – 21), supported by Sustainability Victoria.
More information: National Water Week
Subscribe to Edstream
As we pursue our commitment to sustainability, Melbourne Water's newsletter for schools EdStream is now available online. To subscribe to EdStream, contact us online.