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Aquatox 2000: Canadian Schools Participate in a Worldwide Network to Study Water Pollution

1999-03-31

Thirty-two Canadian schools will take part this year in Aquatox 2000, an international schools network studying water pollution. Launched in October 1998 by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Aquatox network now includes 78 schools in 26 countries: Argentina, Benin, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cote d'Ivoire, Cuba, Ecuador, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Mexico, Mongolia, Nepal, Tanzania, Thailand, Ukraine, the United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

"Thanks to this ground-breaking project, participating schools and students in Canada and abroad have the chance to become true research units and to use inexpensive tests for checking the water quality in their immediate surroundings," says Gilles Forget, team leader for IDRC's Ecosystem Approaches to Human Health program. "We believe strongly that youngsters are uniquely well placed to sound the alarm and alert their communities to the importance of water quality for their health, and to highlight the fragility of this resource that is too often simply taken for granted."

Water tests

With backup from laboratories around the world, schools that agree to take part in the network receive from IDRC a kit containing an instructions manual and a set of four highly simplified tests.  The students, ranging in age from 9 to 14 years, can take water samples from their immediate surroundings and analyze them with these tests, which are used to measure both chemical pollution and bacteria contamination.

Students can test for toxins in the water by observing their impact on germinating lettuce seeds and onion bulbs, and on the fresh-water hydra (a tiny animal that changes shape in response to the conditions of its environment), and by using strips of specially treated paper that change colour in the presence of bacteria of fecal origin. The young researchers can then broadcast the results of their tests throughout the world by posting them on IDRC's Aquatox website.

Participating institutions

Several institutions and laboratories in Canada and other countries will supervise the experiment. They include the St Lawrence River Institute for Environmental Sciences, Environment Canada's St. Lawrence Centre and National Water Research Council, the Universidad Nacional de la Plata in Argentina, the Universidad de Chile in Chile, the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Colombia, the Universidad Nacional Heredia in Costa Rica, the All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health in India, the Instituto Mexicano de Tecnología del Agua in Mexico, and the Institute of Hydrobiology in the Ukraine.

Resource Persons: 

Diane Hardy, Head, Media Relations, IDRC, PO Box 8500, Ottawa, Ontario, K1G 3H9, Canada; Tel:  (613) 236-6163, ext. 2570; Fax: (613) 563-2476; E-mail: dhardy@idrc.ca

Gilles Forget, Team Leader, Ecosystem Approaches to Human Health, IDRC, PO Box 8500, Ottawa, Ontario, K1G 3H9, Canada; Tel.: (613) 236-6163, ext. 2545; Fax: (613) 567-7748; Email: gforget@idrc.ca 

Links to explore ...

Aquatox 2000 news release

Detecting the Presence of Waterborne Chemicals: Alternative Water Tests for the South, by John Eberlee and Jennifer Pepall

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