Photo Story Vaisigano River Project A Citizen Science Project

Reading the river

Using data collection, the Übersee-Museum Bremen together with the National University of Samoa have co-created the citizen science project.

The aim of the project is to strengthen Samoans relationship with its rivers and freshwater systems. The Vaisigano river system streams over a thousand square kilometres of the Samoan Island. As part of the project volunteer students from the environmental sciences took a field visit to the Vaisgano river.

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Excited for the first field day, the participants head to the Vaisigano river. The team of volunteers mostly consisted of first year students of the environmental sciences.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, photo: Gese Gese

Am ersten Tag ging es weniger um trockene Fakten als um Emotionen und die individuelle Beziehung zum Fluss. Die Teilnehmenden wurden daher gebeten, einen Teil des Flusses zu erkunden und anschließend ihre Perspektive zu malen.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, Foto: Gese Gese

The participants later share their paintings and explain their emotions behind it. This girl has included rubbish from the river bank in her painting to shed light on the pollution of the river.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, photo: Gese Gese

On the second field day, the team visited another part of the Vaisigano river system further upstream with less impact from the city.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, photo: Gese Gese

The participants head into the water to collect data on the health of this part of the river. The scientists from the NUS and the Übersee-Museum explain the individual tasks.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, photo: Gese Gese

People are standing in the water, holding a tape measure. — The participants measure different parameters in the river stretch, like the speed of the current. The tools needed for this are a tape measure, a floating object and a stop watch.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, photo: Gese Gese

A chemical test using colour codes to indicate different phosphate concentrations. — Invisible pollution in the water can be detected with ready to use toolkits.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, photo: Gese Gese

A man is holding a net in the water. — The team takes samples with a hand net to assess the biodiversity in the river.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, photo: Gese Gese

People are leaning over a bowl containing samples. — In the laboratory the samples from the river are checked for animals and sorted into new containers.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, photo: Kush Sethi

A freshwater prawn — Unter vielen winzigen Schnecken und Insektenlarven fanden sich auch einige stattliche Exemplare, wie diese Süßwassergarnele.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, Foto: Michael Stiller

A person is holding up a small jar containing tiny prawns — The specimen were conserved in ethanol and labeled to be stored in the collection of the NUS for future research.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, photo: Kush Sethi

People laughing in the laboratory — While learning about their environment and gathering valuable data for river research, the team didn’t forget to have some fun, too.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, photo: Kush Sethi

Find more stories …

As part of preparing our permanent exhibition “The Blue Continent—Islands in the Pacific,” we’ve built networks and collected stories. There are more stories to discover here!