A hands-on experience with sea creatures is a great way to engage children in a conversation about water, Noslam engagement officer Nicola Neal says.

North Otago Sustainable Land Management, with funding from the Otago Catchment community, has brought the Aquavan to Ōamaru, to create awareness around the connections between river health and the coastal environment.

The van, which is equipped with chilled recirculating seawater tanks, has travelled from the Portobello-based New Zealand Marine Study Centre, and is stationed at Ōamaru Intermediate School this week (May 1 to May 5). 

About 320 students from Intermediate, Pembroke School and St Joseph’s School, were visiting for two-hour sessions throughout the week, with a public drop-in session being held on Thursday (May 4) between 5-7pm, Nicola said.

“The programme is all about engaging with your catchment, and understanding what happens when we put water down the drain, what happens when we flush the loo, what happens when we wash our car in the driveway - where does that water come from and where does it go? And I guess what are the flow-on effects downstream. 

“So, say in Ōamaru, we’ve got a penguin colony, and a whole lot of stuff happening out there, and any sediment that comes down the river ends up out there, so what effect will that have?” 

Supper is being provided for Thursday’s drop-in session, and people did not need to book, Nicola said.

“It would be great to get as many people along to that as possible, so that they can see what a cool thing it is.” 

This is the first time Noslam had worked with the Aquavan, but members saw it as a “really valuable” learning tool.

“Which can get our families and whanau understanding and . . . engaged in the conversation around what’s going on with the water quality, and what’s affecting it,” she said.

“They’re using this really cool opportunity of bringing marine creatures to play with, as a way of engaging that conversation.”

New Zealand Marine Study Centre curator Aaron Heimann, who brought the van to Ōamaru, said the species in the touch tank were the “hardy varieties” that could withstand travel.

It was a way of bringing some of the marine lab to groups that could not easily visit the Portobello base.

“So the Aquavan is filling that gap of the schools who couldn’t make it, and allows us to ethically transport these species out to those places.

“We’ve got five different species of starfish or sea stars, kina, and cockles and mussels. Six species of crabs that we bring along . . . we’ve got a few that are a bit stroppy, so we keep them separate.”

There was also a collection of marine plant life to keep the creatures feeling at home and happy in the tanks.

“That’s the benefit of our van, we can take our seawater - you know, we’re on the coast here - but we go right up into Central, right through Canterbury, Southland and Otago - and a smidgen to the West Coast,” he said.

“The other thing the van does is, researchers also use it if they need to transport species over a distance or they need to monitor them. So we transported crayfish recently from Bluff for a research project.”

Those interested in checking out the Aquavan and its displays are encouraged to drop in to Oamaru Intermediate School Hall between 5pm and 7pm, on Thursday (May 4).