Join a group of ecologists and digital tech nerds to discover what’s living in the river and what it means for the environment. We will be using eco-acoustic sensors to record underwater wildlife all weekend (linked to our planned installation). In this workshop, we will be getting into the river to try to find the creatures that we have (hopefully!) recorded. We’ll demonstrate techniques that can be replicated by anyone, anywhere, to give a quick indication of how healthy or polluted a river is. We will start by listening to our recordings to see if we can guess what we have found. We will then give a 15-min crash course on identifying eight types of invertebrates that can be found in rivers, each of which indicates different environmental conditions. Under the direction of workshop participants, our workshop leads will get into the river and collect some wiggly creatures. Everyone will count which species we have found and we will finish with a score that indicates how healthy or polluted the river is. If we have time, we will also demonstrate some simple tests to detect pollutants in the water. Participants will receive information to take home with them about different techniques that they can use to monitor river health for themselves, ranging from in-river surveys to Arduino sensor builds.

Warning: We are not planning for participants to go in the water, but they may come into contact with the water so please cover up any cuts or broken skin.

If you cannot make our workshop time slot then do come across to our "what's in the water" village - we plan to be around at midday on Fri / Sat to run informal workshops.