Welcome!

Hey, Water Ranger! 

Now that your new testkit has arrived, you’re just about ready to start monitoring the water you love. In doing so, we can almost guarantee that you’ll develop a whole new sense of connection to nature, and that you’ll have a ton of fun while you’re at it!  

Where should I start?

Your field guide tells you everything you need to know about the tools in your kit and how to use them. It’s in the front of your kit! We recommend reading this from cover to cover before going any further!

In case that’s not your style, we’ve prepared some helpful videos which will show you how to use your equipment, how to upload your data, and more! 

Check ‘em out here: 

What’s in my kit?

You can rest assured that the equipment you’re getting is tried, tested, and true. Wondering how we can be so sure of that? Check out our research page to find out!

All of our Freshwater Explorer Testkits contain: 

• A field guide, notepad, and pen. You’ll learn everything you need to know about testing with Water Rangers in our field guide, and you can record all of your observations in the notepad provided if you don’t have your phone handy. 
• Stickers, badges, and postcards. Find these in the ‘goodie bag’ in your kit’s front pocket, and share them with others! 
• A waterproof cell phone case. Put your phone in here so it doesn’t get wet while you’re out on the water! We still wouldn’t recommend submerging it, though. 
• A ‘reacher stick’ and a sample cup. Attach your sample cup to your reacher stick to grab water samples from hard to reach places.
• Whirl Paks and gloves. You can use these to pick up trash, or to collect samples of things you’d like to learn more about. Please exercise caution while doing so! 
• A conductivity meter. This measures the water’s ability to conduct electricity! You can read more about what this means and why it’s important here. Do you have an Ocean Explorer kit? Then you have a salinity meter or refractometer instead! You can learn more about why it’s important to measure salinity here. 
• A thermometer. You can use this to measure air temperature and water temperature.
• 50 teststrips. We include teststrips that measure pH, alkalinity, hardness, and chlorine in all of our kits. These teststrips are super user-friendly, but if you want to learn more about how to use them and how to interpret your results, check out this page.
• A container to dispose of your test strips. Place your used test strips in this container and mail them back to us using the envelope provided- we’ll take care of disposal. 
• A secchi disk. Use this to measure clarity. Visit this page to find out how to use your secchi disk, and to find out how to measure secchi depth! 
• 30 dissolved oxygen tests. This is probably our most fun, but ‘tricky’ test. You’ll be a pro in no time though! Check out this page to learn more about the parameter and how to test for it. 
• A container to dispose of your used dissolved oxygen ampoules. This one is pretty self explanatory, just be careful when you dispose of them since they’re made of glass! 

Quickstart guide

Unboxing your kit

Still have questions?

If you still have questions about your kit or our platform, don’t hesitate to contact us! You can also visit our Frequently Asked Questions page for more information.