Things We've Done

6 students and their teacher who runs the Eco-Club at Queen Elizabeth’s School in
Wimborne, took part in a Riverfly Monitoring session on the River Allen at the
Allendale café this week with volunteers from Rivers for Wimborne. The aim was to
try and inspire young people to get involved in conservation and see how we monitor
the health of rivers through this national scheme which is co-ordinated locally by
Dorset Wildlife Trust.
Monitors sample the river once a month using a standardised method, then sort and
count the invertebrates which gives a score for that sample. If this score is below a
set ‘trigger level’ for that site or if the score changes dramatically, it will alert the
monitors to an issue and they would contact the relevant authorities such as the
Environment Agency to investigate fully.
The students learned about some of the stressors on some of our rivers in Dorset, of
which there are over 1000k including some globally rare chalk streams such as the
River Allen. Some of these include pollution from agricultural runoff, sewage, road
run off historic altering the course of the river, biodiversity loss, invasive species and
the influence of recreational activities, particularly the devastating effect that spot on
treatment of dogs for fleas and ticks can have on the insect life in the river. As
riverflies, such as mayflies, stoneflies and caddis flies are very sensitive to pollution,
have a long lifecycle in the water and have limited mobility, they are very good
indicators of river health – they are the ‘canaries’ of the river systems.
Having sampled the river, the students got stuck in to identifying and sorting the
invertebrates into 8 different groups. They picked up how to identify the creatures
very quickly and enthusiastically before adding up their counts and getting their
score, which showed that the river here is in reasonable health now.
It is hoped that sessions like these will inspire younger people to get involved in
these types of citizen science schemes such as riverfly monitoring, and the Water
Guardian scheme, again co-ordinated by DWT, and is a monthly visual check of the
river, and the Earthwatch Waterblitz scheme which is a biannual measure of nitrates
and phosphates in the river.
Students all received a leaflet with hints and tips on how we can all take action to
look after our rivers, and they were keen to share this information with other students
in school.
The teacher Ms Leanord said
‘It was such an informative session, and the students had a fantastic time. They
really enjoyed getting stuck into the river dipping and identifying the different
invertebrates, and they were still talking about it on the way back to school! It was a

brilliant opportunity for them to learn more about the health of our local rivers through
such a hands-on experience.
Thank you again for such a wonderful experience. We would absolutely love to work
with you again in the future.’
Rivers for Wimborne hope to do more sessions with schools to get our young people
interested in looking after our rivers. For more information see the website
www.wildingwimborne.org.uk or contact riversforwimborne@gmail,com