Monitoring a eutrophic lake at Rotokawau - Virginia lake, Whanganui, New Zealand
Summer time Rotokawau-Virginia lake, viewed from the northern edge. The southern boardwalk where water sampling took place is to the top right of the lake. Whanganui City College Science department completed a year long campaign to monitor the chemical and microbial content of the surface waters at Rotokawau-Virginia lake in September 2019. Getting out of school during the day is always difficult for a teacher and even more so accompanied by a student or two but amazingly Rotokawau-Virginia lake was visited every week, bar one, for an entire year! The purpose of this project was to try and better understand the processes that occur in a eutrophic lake. The Science programme at Whanganui City College is place-based and this means students learn about science in their own back yard. No one has spent this long studying our iconic lake so feel free to peruse the data and our observations, and understand that every one of us is capable of making science. I