Start a testing group
Starting a new monitoring group?
Beyond setting up on the Water Rangers platform to collect data, it is important to consider…
- What is your goal in monitoring? Is there a particular issue you’re worried about, or are you trying to create baseline data? This matters when selecting sample locations and frequency. For example, if you’re worried about pollution, you may test in an uncontaminated location and at the point source.
- Who is responsible? For the plan and making sure protocols are being followed.
- How much time do you plan to devote to testing? Testing takes time!
- Which protocol will you follow? On Water Rangers, you can specify your group’s protocol by customizing the form to your data points. You can also follow the Water Rangers’ protocol if you’re using the Water Rangers’ kit.
Create a group account on Water Rangers’ data platform
It’s free to have a group account on our data platform. A group account allows you and your group members (volunteers, staff, neighbours) to manage and share your water data in one place.
Create your user account
To create your group account, the first thing you’ll need to do is create a user account on our data platform.
Sign up for your user account here.
Note that both the group admin and any group members require a user account to share data through the group account.
Next, create a group account
Once you’ve created a user account, you can add a new group account. Click here to access the “new group” form.
Follow our step by step instructions to get your group set up.
Some great group examples
- Dog River Clearwater Revival
- Lac McGlashan et Girard
- Mobile Baykeeper Team
- Ottawa Riverkeeper Riverwatch Program
Group FAQs
The administrator of your group has the power change observations from other members. It’s a great way to do quality assurance of your own data. If you are the administrator of a group, you should see the option to edit an observation at the bottom left. Here’s how:
You certainly can! You can learn all about creating a group here. It’s a great way to let people know your testing protocol and manage different testers in your group.
The group administrator has a lot of privileges. They can:
- Create a testing region to let people know where you’re testing the water.
- Invite users to be part of your group.
- Download the data for all your group.
- Edit any observations from other members in the group if you find a mistake.
Volunteering FAQs
Amazing! We always encourage people to start testing the water in what ever way is available to them! You can get one of our testkits or you can start gathering other data with equipment you have on hand. Your eyes are your best tool! You can go observe:
- The water and the shoreline
- Animals, plants, and fish you see
- Does the water level look low, normal or high?
- If you have a thermometer, you can easily measure the air and water temperature and record that as well.
You can also reach out to local environmental groups and see how they’re testing the water and ask if they need help.
That’s great! We’re always looking for more stories for our blog. You can contact us, make sure to tell us your story and we’ll be in touch! Other than sharing stories on our blog, we also like to feature stories on our social media accounts, so please send pictures, too!
We love partnering with knowledgeable people that have something to share with our community. Reach out to us and let’s discuss it more! We can work on making a short video explaining a certain water parameter that you test for together, or write something for our blog.
