Water Quality Monitoring


The Nisqually River Education Project can provide your classroom with the training, supplies and bus funding for two trips (mid-October and mid-February) to a local waterway to conduct a suite of chemical and physical tests of the water. Students will use their findings to determine if the waterway could support salmon. In March, you can send a handful of student delegates to our annual Student GREEN Congress to report their findings to their peers at Evergreen’s campus during a day of workshops and fun!

Not sure where to begin? Check out our introductory video below to find out more about water quality monitoring and how to get started!

Portal and Virtual Resources

Check out our online Water Quality Monitoring Portal and its accompanying journal and how-to video here!

Current Manual

Here is a link to our newest Water Quality Monitoring Manual. If you are looking for a particular page from our old manual, you can find it here: Water Quality Manual (old version).

The Safety Data Sheets for each chemical in our kits can be found here.

Preparing for Testing Day

In addition to the resources outlined in the manual, we have several others that will help you and your students feel confident on testing day:

Here is a great PowerPoint presentation to introduce your students to water quality testing, and the 8 water quality tests they will do.

Watch our staff do each of the 5 main water quality tests (Temperature, pH, Dissolved Oxygen, Nitrates, and Turbidity) in this video.

All of our virtual water quality monitoring resources are excellent pre-trip learning options. The portal contains many helpful videos and games to ensure students grasp the basics of water quality monitoring.

Historical Water Quality Data

Check out our new map that shows each water quality site and all of the data ever collected there!  Also, here’s the last couple of years’ data.  These can be useful for comparisons, making predictions about your monitoring, and identifying trends.

Additional Resources

All of our favorite resources to prepare for, conduct and reflect on your water quality monitoring day are here in one spot!