From classrooms to river currents

Every year, thousands of Edmonton junior high students participate in RiverWatch, swapping their backpacks for lifejackets and making the North Saskatchewan River their classroom for the day. These School Science Floats help bring curriculum off the page and give students a hands-on experience that inspires them to be environmental stewards and consider careers in STEM.

Leading the day are river guides — specially trained university students studying fields like geology, biology and environmental science — who bring the experience to life with hands-on learning and real-world insight. Through the guides’ stories and expertise, students begin to see their own role in protecting the watershed and how a career in STEM can help ensure the river is healthy for generations to come.

Every float also focuses on explaining how water travels from the river to our taps and back again, and what it takes to keep the water healthy throughout the process. Students take water samples upstream of the Gold Bar Wastewater Treatment Plant and predict whether the water quality will be better than the samples they will collect downstream later in the day. After a tour of Gold Bar to learn how water is treated, they complete their downstream water tests and compare the results — they’re often surprised to discover how healthy the river is on both sides of the wastewater treatment plant!

The combination of hands-on learning, real-world science and a firsthand experience on the river makes the School Science Float very impactful. This is why EPCOR has supported RiverWatch and its Edmonton School Science Floats for 20 years, recently signing another three-year presenting sponsorship to ensure more Edmonton youth experience the river in such a unique way. EPCOR’s funding will help RiverWatch increase the number of student participants from 4,000 to 6,000 each year and provide experiment kits to reinforce what students learned on the river.

For one group of students from STEM Collegiate, the river became more than a classroom — it became a place to see what’s possible.

This spring, RiverWatch hosted an all-female float led by river guide Brigid Elliott and supported by Dagny Sanche, Water Services’ Operations Training Coordinator. Together, they created space for students to ask questions and connect with women in STEM. 

“I liked rafting the most because it was fun to see nature in real life instead of just learning about it in a classroom,” shared Ambika, a Grade 9 student from STEM Collegiate.

Moments like this help make environmental science and STEM careers feel possible and exciting for students. Seeing themselves reflected in the women leading the experience helps them envision their own future in these fields.

“Working in a scientific field, you get to think critically and do something different every day,” says Dagny Sanche.  

Through experiences like the School Science Float, RiverWatch is making a lasting impression on participants, and EPCOR hopes young Edmontonians are inspired to value the North Saskatchewan River and take pride in protecting it.