P5S have been pond dipping between the stream near our school and the Eliburn Park to find out how clean the water is. Straight away we noticed that the water was full of rubbish and pollution like trolleys, crisp packets, bottles, cans and a frisbee. We felt sad for the animals who live there and we thought about what all that litter meant for the environment. We could see lots of algae, oil on the top of the water and lots of foam we thought might be detergent.

We investigated how the waterways become polluted by water run off from housing estates and the streets in an experiment later in the week.

We went to different parts of the water and we used a kick test to get a sample. We kicked the water and scooped all of the cloudy water into our bucket. We tried to see what creatures were living at the bottom in the mud. We also scooped from the top, middle and bottom of the water to see what was living in the different parts of the water.

We took the samples back to class and we compared them to each other to see what was inside. We found freshwater shrimp, mosquito larvae, flatworm, pond skater, freshwater boatmen, leeches and minnow fish. We also saw swan mussels. From collecting all of the samples and using our special sheet that told us what we needed to see to show the water was healthy we could prove that the water was fairly clean.