River Project

Over the past couple of months the boys have been working on a river project based on the river near us. They completed the final piece yesterday. I didn't plan this whole project out in advance, it started with an idea and evolved from there. Neither is it a project that is filed all in one place, it comprises some written work and some powerpoints, so it is not something that can be photographed or displayed. I've done some blog posts connected with this before, but now its time to sum up.
This is a summary of the different tasks that have gone to make up the project:

1.We walked along the areas of the river near us, photographed it at different locations and noted different features. This was done over several days, each day visiting different stretches of the river. At home the boys assembled the photos into a powerpoint presentation to describe the area of the river we had visited. This focussed on describing the features, looking at erosion etc.

2. I borrowed a book about the river from the local studies section of the library. We read about the background and history of the river and its role both  in our local area and other areas it flows through. The boys made some notes on this.

3. Using the textbook "Geography fieldwork Projects" by Jennifer Frew we read about how fieldwork can be carried out on rivers. We carried out a fieldwork project on measuring the river's flow, and the boys wrote up their results for their geography files.

4. Some time later we carried out a second fieldwork exercise on investigating the river's load, which also got written up for the files.

5. Using several internet sources the boys found examples of different ways the river is currently used by people (eg leisure, wildlife sanctuaries), and some examples of historical uses (eg water mills, transportation). From this they put together powerpoint presentations to explain different uses of the river, (along its whole length,) and compare past uses with current ones.

6. Again using the textbook mentioned above we read about assessing water quality in rivers. We then searched online for information about the water quality of our local river. We found several sources of information on this. From those sources the boys put together a report looking at how water quality is assessed, problems of pollution and efforts being made to improve water quality in the river we have been studying.

I'm sure there must be many more things we could have done to extend this project further, but it seems to have run its course with us and now seems the right time to draw this particular study to a close.
However, during this long look at one particular river we have come to know it quite well, and I feel that this won't be forgotten in a hurry. Bringing something local into geography study has been really beneficial, maashAllah. Also I've come to know of some locations along the river, a little further away from us, which I'd like to visit inshAllah, so looking forward to being able to do that too.