Mapping my local water catchment
A water catchment is an area of land and the water that collects and moves through it. Catchments influence the biodiversity and ecology of stream and river systems. One way to view catchments is with a topographic map, which shows the natural and cultural features of an area.
Learning about your catchment
Alice Trevelyan works as a catchment management officer at Waikato Regional Council, so she knows a lot about water catchments. She offers some advice about how you can learn about yours.
Question for discussion:
Why do you think people want to learn about their catchment?
In this activity, students use an online topographic map to view their local catchment area(s) and consider how elevation, vegetation, land use and human activities influence waterways. It provides practice with the science capability ‘Interpret representations’.
By the end of this activity, students should be able to:
locate an area of interest on an online topographic map
identify some of the local features on the topographic map
consider how features such as relief and vegetation influence water movement and water flows in a chosen catchment
consider how human influences might or do impact water in the chosen catchment
use content vocabulary associated with water catchments and topographic maps
Download the Word file (see link below).
