Welcome to our educational resources hub, your go-to place for integrating water quality testing into your classroom. Our Education Testkit makes it easy to connect students with real-world environmental science, blending effortlessly with Canadian curriculums across elementary and secondary levels. Whether you’re aiming to enrich your lessons with hands-on activities or foster a sense of environmental stewardship among your students, you’ll find everything you need right here.
What do we offer?
Our Education Testkit is designed to make water quality monitoring accessible and engaging for students and teachers alike. These kits provide tools to test key water health parameters such as pH, conductivity, and dissolved oxygen. The testkits offer an interactive way for students to explore and understand freshwater ecosystems while fostering skills in data collection and analysis—core competencies highlighted in our curriculum connections.
Our testkits are available for purchase through our online store, where you can also find restocking consumables, merchandise, and additional tools for your experience.
Where can you use our resources?
Our resources are adaptable to both indoor and outdoor environments, including classrooms, homeschool settings, camps, field trips, nature walks, and more. We offer virtual training sessions to help you feel prepared to apply the kits in your context. Our hands-on workshops are ideal for students in grades 5-12, including those in environment clubs, youth groups, or homeschool circles, and they’re equally effective whether delivered online or in person. We also offer engaging professional development sessions designed to inspire and equip teachers with the skills and knowledge needed to effectively integrate our resources into their teaching.
Why teach water quality testing?
Water testing is an empowering act that connects us to nature and each other, encouraging us to conserve and protect sacred environmental resources. By participating in community-based water monitoring (CBWM), students learn how their actions contribute to larger environmental goals, building essential skills in critical thinking, problem-solving, and data literacy. Our approach emphasizes fostering lifelong learning, being proactive in stewardship, and nurturing a sense of agency in youth, equipping them to actively address ecological challenges.
Water Rangers is dedicated to making these opportunities accessible for all. We offer a variety of funding options to help educators bring water testing into their classrooms. Explore our funding for educators page for a list of grants available to support the purchase of our kits. In line with our internal mandate, 25% of our grant-supported equipment goes to Indigenous and underserved communities.
Safety and accessibility are top priorities when developing our testkits, and safety while testing is VERY important. Remember to review our full safety protocols here. Also note that our dissolved oxygen tool should be used with caution and only by upper-year students as it involves glass. Watch this video on how to properly use the dissolved oxygen kit and dispose of the glass ampules.
Yes, the kits are designed for multiple uses! Consumables like test strips and reagents can be restocked through our online store. The kits include instructions on how to care for the tools over time and are a great shared resource and can be used between classes or even between schools in the district as a lending library. We offer a restocking pack for an easy bundle of consumables.
Yes, we do! We offer educator workshops and presentations, which can be customized for pro-d days, conferences, or classroom settings. Our staff is available in Vancouver, Ottawa, and Toronto, and we’re happy to arrange virtual sessions too. We are also willing to attend further in-person opportunities with travel expenses covered. Contact us to inquire more about what we can offer.
I’m an educator and wondered if you had any resources that I can use to start testing with my students?
We understand that curriculum is applied locally by the educator, and our goal is to help educators understand our educational framework and adapt it to their approach to nurture a generation of water leaders. Our resources are designed to support the integration of interdisciplinary, holistic environmental learning in the classroom. Get started with our curriculum connections.
No worries! Our testkits can be used with any accessible water source, including tap water, rainwater, or even snowmelt. All of our lesson plans include both indoor and outdoor components, offering valuable learning experiences about water chemistry and pollution sources.
I’m an educator keen to use the testkits in my classroom, but I don’t have funding. What can I do?
Our goal is to make water quality education accessible to all, so we’ve compiled a list of grants to support educators in getting our kits. We also have grant-supported equipment available, with an internal mandate of 25% of grant-supported equipment going to Indigenous and underserved communities. Reach out to us to learn more about our funding opportunities and how to access our kits!
We love engaging with students about water stewardship and what it means to be a Water Ranger! We’re actively seeking educators to help us refine our curriculum on water testing. If you’d like us to visit, please contact us. Keep in mind, while we have testers across North America, we’re based in the Vancouver, Ottawa, and Montreal regions, so travel costs may apply.
We have been using our Testkits with groups of students since 2018. As such, we are always adapting them to suit students’ needs! We have several kits suited for different group sizes and settings:
Tiny Testkit: Great for 1-2 younger students, usable anywhere with shoreline access.
Education Testkit: Ideal for classrooms of 15-20 students, adaptable for all ages.
Freshwater Explorer Testkit: Best for groups of 4-5 students, suitable for any body of water.
Compact Freshwater Testkit: Designed for smaller groups of 2-4 students, perfect for rivers, streams, and ponds.
Have questions or feedback?
We’d love to hear from you! Whether you have questions about our educational resources or want to share your experiences and suggestions, we’re here to help.