This Is Your River

Practical science session and gallery drama for KS2 In partnership with

Contents

Curriculum links, session descriptions and gallery time 3

Timetable 4

Practical guidelines 5

Pre-visit activities 6

River pollution today 7

Post-visit activities 10

Further opportunities with Thames21 17

Planning your journey 18

Curriculum links Pollution in the present

Science A hands-on, scientific look at our rivers today. During this session pupils will Life processes and living things, Living examine a sample of river water and things in their environment learn how pollution enters our local waterways. They will use reactive tablets History for identifying pollutants in this sample. We will provide pupils with protective gloves and facilities to clean their hands A study of an aspect of history or a site afterwards . This activity will be fully dating from a period beyond 1066 that is explained and supervised by the significant in the locality (the River workshop facilitators. There is a low risk Thames). of pupils becoming ill if they ingest either the river water sample or pollution Session descriptions reaction tablets. Therefore we ask for your support in reaffirming the guidelines we give for carrying out the activity during Pollution in the past the workshop and helping us to ensure pupils undertake it safely. Meet Sir Joseph Bazalgette and hear about the Great Stink and his ambitious Further learning scheme to carry sewage out of London. Within this pack you will find suggested activities to enrich your teaching before and after your visit, and to help you and your class to get the best possible educational value from your visit to the museum.

3 © Museum of London Docklands 2015

Timetables

The sessions below will run once only and at the times stated in your confirmation letter so please arrive on time. There will be schools booked for the other sessions and you will not be able to overrun your allocated time. It is your responsibility to ensure your pupils are on time for their sessions. Please check your confirmation letter for your allocated group.

Group 1 10 – 10.30am Arrival 10.30 – 11.30am This is your river workshop session (learning room, basement level) 11.30am – 12pm Lunch (Lee Boo room, basement level) 12 – 12.45pm The Great Stink (First Port of Empire gallery, 2 nd floor)

Group 2 10 – 10.30am Arrival 10.30 – 11.15am The Great Stink (First Port of Empire gallery, 2 nd floor) 11.15 – 11.45am Lunch (Lee Boo room, basement level) 11.45am – 12.45pm This is your river workshop session (learning room, basement level)

Group 3 10.45 – 11.15am Arrival 11.15am – 12pm The Great Stink (First Port of Empire gallery, 2 nd floor) 12 – 12.30pm Lunch (Lee Boo room, basement level) 1 – 2pm This is your river workshop session (learning room, basement level)

Practical guidelines Arrival, cloakroom and toilets Please use the main entrance on West India Quay. When you arrive you will be met by a member of the Visitor Services team, who will brief your group and direct you to the Learning Centre where you will be able to leave your coats and bags and go to the toilet before entering the galleries. Please do not leave valuables in the cloakroom area. Lunch If appropriate, you have been allocated a 30-minute lunch slot in your schedule. There is no eating or drinking in the galleries, so please ensure that all food stuffs are left in the cloakroom. Please ensure your students leave the area clean and tidy for the next school. Special Educational Needs provision The museum is fully accessible. Parking is available for SEN groups. Please contact our SEN Programme Manager to discuss any specific needs on 020 7814 5549 or at [email protected] Shop The shop sells a variety of books and products to support learning, as well as pocket money items. Please request a time slot in the shop or if you would prefer, the shop offer a time saving goody bag service. A goody bag form will be sent with your confirmation letter. For further details contact the shop by email at [email protected] or call 020 7001 9803. Photography Photography during schools sessions is welcomed. You are also welcome to take general photographs (i.e. not close-ups of individual objects) within the Museum galleries without flash or tripod use. These images may only be reproduced for personal or educational purposes, which include reproducing the image as a classroom teaching aid or as part of a school project. Any publication of the image for any other purpose is forbidden, which includes publication on any website. As an alternative pictures of many of our key objects are available to download from the Picturebank on our website, www.museumoflondon.org.uk/picturebank . Postcards and posters can be purchased from the shop and prints may be purchased from our on demand print website www.museumoflondonprints.com Risk assessments It is the responsibility of the group leader to carry out a risk assessment and teachers are encouraged to make a planning visit and to carry out their own assessment. The museum makes regular assessments of our public spaces and this document is available on request, but this is only for teachers’ information and does not constitute an official risk assessment. Pre-visits are free of charge and do not need to be booked. Please inform staff at the Information Desk of the nature of your visit so they can help you make the most of your time in the galleries. Organising your group Split your class into small groups for working in the galleries and visiting the shop. Please ensure that you have at least one adult for every 10 pupils and that the adults accompany them at all times. Please ensure your pupils know the following information: • work quietly – other groups and members of the public will be using the museum • please do not lean on the glass cases • only use pencils in the galleries. Teachers should provide clipboards and pencils and photocopy gallery activity sheets PRIOR to their visit so that each pupil/group has a copy for use in the museum.

5 © Museum of London Docklands 2015

Pre-visit activities We highly recommend doing one or more of these activities before the session. • lead a class discussion about pollution. Discuss types of pollution and how this pollution could get into our rivers. Consider pollutants washing off roads, coming from our homes and schools, and how London’s outdated sewage system is often overloaded and overflows into rivers. See teacher notes in River Pollution Today section below to support this • ask pupils to plan the timetable for their day out at the Museum of London Docklands. This could include planning travel arrangements and timings, helping to write letters home to parents, discussing what they could bring in their packed lunches, talking about suitable clothes to wear etc • use the internet to find out about the London Docklands or the River Thames and how they have changed over time • if your school is close to a river or other watercourse, take your class to observe it to see what evidence they can find of pollution.

6 © Museum of London Docklands 2015

River pollution today

The River Lea is London’s second river, flowing from the Chiltern Hills to the River Thames. It is a vital habitat for wildlife and source of London’s drinking water, yet every day we pollute it.

There are four main sources of pollution that affect city rivers.

Misconnections

Two types of drainage system exist in London:

• combined, where all flows go to foul sewers and are treated at a sewage works • separate, where clean rainfall drains directly to river, sea or ground, and foul sewage drains to a sewage treatment plant

Problems occur when plumbing is incorrectly connected. Two types of misconnection exist:

• sewage or waste water pipes connected to clean surface water drains • clean water pipes connected to foul drains

Misconnections cause pollution. Foul discharges to clean water drains result in untreated sewage going directly to a watercourse. Clean rainfall to foul drains is also a problem as it causes sewerage overflows, takes up sewer capacity, affects sewage treatment plants and takes energy to pump and treat.

7 © Museum of London Docklands 2015

The water quality of the River Lea is seriously affected by these types of misconnections.

Combined Sewer Overflows (CSO)

In a combined sewer system all of our wastewater and surface water goes into one pipe. This pipe takes everything to a sewage treatment works for processing. When it rains our sewer system cannot cope with surface water in addition to our waste water which results in a sewage overflow. The more rain that enters sewers, the less room there is for sewage. A combined system is designed to overflow into a river instead of backing up into streets and homes. It is estimated that untreated sewage and sewage-related debris is discharged into our rivers at least once a week. After heavy rainfall, Deephams Sewage Treatment Works in Edmonton overflows, discharging millions of tonnes of wastewater into the River Lea.

Pollution from roads and car parks

Green space amounting to 22 times the size of Hyde Park has been paved over in a generation in London, such as small fragments of greenery that have been covered in housing, asphalt or concrete slabs. Front gardens have been turned into parking spaces. The effect on rivers is devastating. We have paved over so much of London but nothing significant or coherent has been done to address it. Rivers suffer further as extensive paving means rain flows into them off our streets faster and in greater volume. This prevents vegetation establishing and washes fish away, while the velocity of water turns gentle streams into torrents. As a result our rivers are damaged by intense levels of pollution when it rains and fish kills are common in the River Lea. We don’t often notice it, but our cars deposit traces of heavy metals and oil onto our roads. Brake pads contain copper which is toxic to river fish. Tyre wear releases zinc, and oil attracts traces of metals such as iron, cadmium and aluminium. Every time it rains this pollution is washed into the storm water pipe that goes to the river. We must remember that our roads are part of a river system.

Fly-tipping and littering

These are the most commonly known sources of river pollution. Not only does it have a huge visual impact on the environment it can also have a significant impact on the health of a river. Fly tipping, often by unlicensed contractors, frequently occurs after home and garden clearances. Items such as waste paints, cleaning products, fridges, and batteries are amongst an array of items commonly dumped and which can leach chemicals into the rivers. Items dumped in this way can also physically harm wildlife that become entangled in or ingest it. Plastic is not biodegradable and will degrade slower in water than on land (a normal plastic bottle will remain intact for more than 450 years in water). Plastics that are

consumed by animals can bioaccumulate and therefore we can end up eating it, if it hasn’t killed the fish or molluscs first! Microplastics come from all sorts of places, larger items that are gradually breaking down in the water-body, or those that have been added to products such as face washes, toothpastes and other cosmetics.

Post-visit activities The next few pages include some fun educational River Ambassador activities that you may wish to try with your class. Feel free to get in touch with Thames21 for support.

Pollution fishing game

Aim: This game educates participants on common types of river pollutants and their sources. Also it opens the discussion around responsible methods of waste disposal.

Resources

• 4 buckets labelled with pollution sources: Plumbing Misconnections, Road Runoff, Sewage Overflow, Fly-tipping & litter • 1 small paddling pool or piece of fabric to represent ‘the river’. If you intend to fill the paddling pool with water, make sure your resources are waterproof and the water is from a tap. Should the water be accidentally ingested, using tap water will avoid potential risk of contracting a waterborne disease. • 2 litter pickers • Items that would naturally be found in the river: e.g. pictures of ducks, fish and plants, stones, sticks and leaves. • Pollutants: examples of pollutants from each of the sources listed above e.g. plumbing misconnections (shampoo, washing powder), road runoff (car oil container rather than the oil itself, fake cigarette butt), sewage overflow (fake poo, wet wipes), fly-tipping & litter (crisp packets, household items) • 1 watch or timer • Notepad / scoreboard to keep score! • Pollution Sources illustration (page 13)

The Challenge Explained

Participants have one minute to remove pollutants from ‘the river’ using the litter picker and sort them into their correct sources (the 4 labelled buckets). Points are gained for each pollutant in the correct bucket and lost for every pollutant in the wrong bucket.

Before the challenge starts talk participants through the Pollution Sources illustration to give them an understanding of the key river pollution sources. Explain that each of the buckets represents one of the key pollution sources. Plumbing misconnections and sewage overflow are not widely understood and can be a difficult concept to get to grips

with, so for some participants you may choose to leave them out or just include one of them in the game as they will have similar pollutant examples.

Key questions to ask participants as they play

• How did the pollutants they extracted get into the river? • What do you think that pollutant would do to wildlife in the river? • How can we stop that pollutant getting to the river? • Do you know what eco-friendly household products are? • How could that item have been disposed of in a responsible way, to avoid it becoming a river pollutant?

Playing a simpler version of the game, eg. with young children

Start the game by explaining what river pollution means, and the fact that these pollutants can come from lots of places. Do not refer to the Pollution Sources illustration; rather refer to photographs of pollution in a river to explain what they would look like in situ.

Use two buckets for the game, ie. a bucket for each participant for the pollutants they have picked out. When they have completed their turn, get them to discuss where they think the pollution came from and what harm they think it could cause in the river. Also get them to discuss the things they left in and why, ie. the natural items.

Create a mini rain garden

Aim: Create a mini rain garden in the classroom to demonstrate how sustainable drainage can be used to remove pollutants from water.

You will need:

• 1 empty plastic bottle (1 litre size or larger) • 1 pair of scissors • Cotton wool • Gravel • Fine sand • Straw/hay/grass • 1 jug of water • Oil (olive oil) to represent the oil from cars

The experiment explained

Vehicles deposit pollutants such as oil, rubber and heavy metals on roads, driveways and car parks. When it rains, these pollutants get washed straight into our rivers.

This polluted rainwater could be channelled into a rain garden (or another form of sustainable drainage system. You can find information about these here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Drainage_System). These naturally treat the water by infiltration and by plants and bacteria (found naturally in the soil) breaking down the pollutants. As rain gardens allow water to sink into the ground naturally they reduce the amount of water rushing into the rivers providing flood protection too!

By creating this mini rain garden you can demonstrate how rain gardens remove pollutants from water.

1. Remove the lid of the plastic bottle and recycle it. 2. Cut the top third off the bottle and upturn it, see diagram below.

3. Place a layer of cotton wool inside the upturned section.

4. Create alternate layers of fine sand and gravels on top of this. 5. Add grass or hay to represent the plants. 6. Now into your jug of water, add 2 teaspoons of olive oil to represent road pollution, also perhaps some twigs, and a teaspoon of soil if you have some. 7. Slowly pour this into your filter. 8. You will see that the water that collects in the lower section of the bottle is much cleaner that what was poured in. 9. More information about sustainable drainage and rain gardens is available on the internet. Try the UK Rain Garden Guide (http://raingardens.info/ ) for a comprehensive explanation, and search for Thames21’s Salmons Brook project (http://www.thames21.org.uk/salmons-brook/ ) for some examples of sustainable drainage we are installing in north London.

14 © Museum of London Docklands 2015

Game: How long does it take to degrade?

Aim: This game raises awareness of how long litter takes to degrade.

You will need : Various items of litter that you may find in a river (see below).

The game explained

Litter that ends up in our rivers can stay there for a long time. As well as this being unsightly, it causes a range of problems, including increasing the risk of flooding and harming wildlife.

Players choose a piece of litter and guess how long it would take to degrade.

Newspaper 6 weeks Cigarette butts 5 years Thin plastic bags 30 years Batteries 100 years Cans 250 years Plastic bottles 450 years Nappies 450 years Glass bottles 500 years

This game can be incorporated into the Pollution Fishing Game as a bonus round!

Make your school more water efficient

Check your building for plumbing misconnections

Aim: Plumbing that has been connected incorrectly can cause household waste water to flow straight into our rivers.

You will need: Find full instructions at the Connect Right website connectright.org.uk

The challenge explained

Many buildings have their plumbing connected incorrectly. This means raw sewage will flow straight into our rivers. Using the website above and your investigation skills, check the plumbing in your home or school to make sure there are no misconnections.

Install a water butt for your building

Aim: By using a water butt to water your plants, you can help reduce the number of times sewers overflow into rivers.

You will need:

A water butt and all the connections. These are usually available from your council at a reduced rate. Follow the instructions that come with the water butt. Otherwise you can recycle old materials and make one from scratch. There are instruction manuals on how to do this online.

The challenge explained

When our sewers are overloaded with sewage and rain water they overflow directly into our rivers. This means waste water from households and businesses ends up in the river not the sewer. This is not the way we should be treating our source of drinking water.

Our population has increased significantly since our sewer systems were designed, meaning they are often overloaded.

Water butts are a simple way of conserving the water that falls onto a building roof and this can be used to water plants. This reduces the amount of water in sewers and in turn reduces the number of sewage overflows to rivers.

Make sure you get the building owner’s permission before you do this.

Further opportunities with Thames21

As part of the Love the Lea campaign, Thames21 provide a range of river education activities free to schools in Tower Hamlets, Newham, Hackney, Waltham Forest, Haringey and Enfield.

To find out more or to ask about any of the resources included in this pack please contact Edel Fingleton at Thames21.

Email: [email protected] Tel: 0207 515 3337 Find out more about our campaign to save east London’s rivers and sign up to the mailing list: www.thames21.org.uk/lovethelea

Planning your journey Admission to the museum is free Museum of London Docklands West India Quay Hertsmere Road London E14 4AL 020 7001 9835 www.museumoflondon.org.uk/docklands [email protected]

Open Mon to Sun 10am – 6pm Last admission 5.30pm

Travel By Tube: Canary Wharf By DLR: West India Quay, Westferry or Canary Wharf By bus: D3, D7, D8, 277, 135 By coach: The museum does not have a coach park. Coaches may drop-off at the designated area on Hertsmere Road By river: The museum is a few minutes’ walk from Canary Wharf Pier Free travel: All schools within the Greater London area can take advantage of Transport for London’s School Party Travel Scheme. See www.tfl.gov.uk/schoolparty or call London Underground Customer Services on 0845 330 9881 for details. NB Travel under this scheme is only available from 9.30am.

Cancellation charges Less than 8 weeks £20 4–8 weeks £50 Less than 4 weeks £100 On the day £150