We are so proud to announce that a group of employees from the Royal Bank of Canada, Dublin where the first group of people to sign up as Citizen Scientists for the Fresh Water Watch taking place along the River Liffey. On Wednesday the 19th of June, Dr Isabel Bishop from Earthwatch Institute, Dr Susan Hegarty and Ruth Clinton from the DCU Water Institute provided the first group training session for the programme.
The training was opened by Dr Bishop. Who gave a brief introduction of the Citizen Science programme. She began with giving an overview of Earthwatch, and what the participants will do. She explained how they will do it, and informed them what is a citizen scientist.
Dr Hegarty then explained the importance of doing the testing; mainly to get information on the effect of storm, and heavy rain on water quality and how this can be compared to sites all over the world. The group will have to perform tests to determine the turbidity, and the nutrients in the River Liffey, as well as to provide some observations on the state of the Liffey at certain times.
Ruth Clinton continued on the presentation. She informed the participants at RBC how to carry out the actual tests themselves. She also gave them a few guidelines that should be followed to ensure that the results are accurate, as well as for the participants to have the best experience! She emphasized the importance of safety in the experiments, to never compromise their safety and health for results. Ruth also provided the good people at RBC a short, but informative training video that explained fully how to carry out the tests, as well as how to record and submit the results.
Afterwards, a live demonstration was held outisde the office of RBC by taking a sample from the River Liffey and this allowed the participants some practice of how to carry out the tests. Dr Bishop, Dr Hegarty, and Ruth Clinton showed how to use the equipment and packs that were going to be provided to the participants, after which, they were allowed to carry out sample tests.
We would like to thank RBC for hosting the event and everyone from RBC who participated. It was amazing to see how enthusiastic everyone was to take part. We’d especially like to thank those who are participating as citizen scientists. Their actions and help will be vital in helping important research to better understand our River Liffey.