New DIY water testing kits
The quality of water in Grahamstown has been a topic of contention for a number of years. The water that comes out of our taps is often a strange colour or unpleasant to drink, and just about anyone you speak to will give you a different opinion on whether or not it’s actually safe to drink the tap water in Grahamstown. Facts seem hard to come by, and most of us would welcome the opportunity to be able to test the quality of our water for ourselves. But where and how would we even start?
The past two weeks have marked the start of an ambitious water quality science engagement programme between Rhodes University and the broader Grahamstown community. This partnership is based on the monitoring of water quality in Grahamstown by Thandiswa Nqowana, a local Rhodes University Masters student. She is working in partnership with approximately 90 Grade 9 pupils from three local schools to whom she has introduced the revolutionary Hydrogen Sulphide (H2S) water testing kit. The H2S water testing kit is a simple water quality testing kit that allows one to test the quality of the water coming out of one's taps and tanks. The H2S water testing kit tests for microbial contamination in water which makes it unsafe for human consumption.
The initial stages of the programme involved educational workshops being held by Nqowana on Rhodes University campus as well as at the three schools. The purpose of the campus workshop was to train third year volunteer Pharmacy students in basic facilitation skills and water quality testing, in order for them to assist in the workshops to be held at the schools.
The volunteers, along with Nqowana then held workshops with Grade 9 pupils about water conservation awareness and the impact of water quality on health and wellbeing. Throughout the workshops learners were willing to engage, and asked questions such “Sisi kutheni amanzi ephuma engathi lubisi etepini ngamanye amaxesha?” (Why does the water come out milky from the tap sometimes?”) The discussion of the milky appearance in the tap water so engrossed the pupils that they spent a long time discussing common ways in which they each get the water to its normal clear appearance at home before using it for drinking or cooking. o“At home we let the water settle,” one pupil remarked.
After the workshop the pupils were supplied with H2S water testing kits with English, IsiXhosa and Afrikaans manuals. of the 10 H2S test kits given to each Grade 9 learner, five were used for control purposes with autoclaved distilled water, and five were to be used to test different water sources.
Water testing will be run for three weeks by the Grade 9s in their homes and since all live in different areas across Grahamstown, their samples will allow for a thorough microbial quality analysis of Grahamstown water in a broad spectrum. This will give us results for the water quality across a huge area of Grahamstown powered by citizen science and thereby putting the testing of water quality in Grahamstown in the hands of the community.
As water quality results are reported back by the Grade 9 pupils to Nqowana on a weekly basis, the results of confirmatory further tests on the water quality conducted at Rhodes are being disseminated to the parents of the learners by SMS. The programme is thus aimed at addressing the epistemic injustice experienced by our local community through water quality results dissemination in the public domain.
After the three-week testing cycle, the engaged high Thandiswa Nqowana, Sharli Paphitis
and Roman Tandlich school pupils will collaborate quality, as well as being able with the Pharmacy student to advise on what to do should volunteers in the Rhodes Unithe kits turn out positive for versity laboratories to learn microbial contamination. how to make the H2S water • Leading the Vision is a series testing kits. These test kits will by significant Grahamstown be shared amongst the Grade players meaningfully 9 pupils to be distributed in contributing to key areas of their homes. The pupils will growth and transformation also be equipped to educate in education, economic family members about the imdevelopment, arts and culture portance of monitoring water and local governance.