Page 88 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

6 Local Matters, EcoJustice, and Community 65

Fig. 6 Much of the valley has retained its rural character with a mixture of fully functioning and
hobby farms, wineries, and orchards (© Roth 2007. With permission)

The Place: Community, Environment, and Watershed-Related
Activism

Central Saanich, the community in which I live has retained much of its rural char-
acter (Fig. 6), though in the three more heavily populated areas in which much of the
municipality’s population concentrates (Fig. 7), urban-type (low-density) develop-
ments are increasingly appearing. Geographically, much of the community lies in the
Hagan Creek watershed, which is dominated by Hagan Creek and its main tributary,
Graham Creek (Fig. 7). The map makes it quite clear that the distances from the
school to the different, easily accessible sites at which the students investigated the
streams are relatively short, within minutes of driving. The landscape is peppered
with farms, riding stables, hobby farms, berry farms (Fig. 8), tree and plant nurseries,
commercial greenhouses, and wineries.
Despite its location in an area of temperate rain forests, the microclimate of
Central Saanich is such that it only receives about 850 mm of rain annually, most
of it falling in the November-to-March period and very little during the remainder
of the year. The local aquifers are insufficient to supply the community with water,
which therefore has to be piped about 40 km from reservoirs situated in the nearby
Sooke Hills region. Recent developments have exacerbated the issue by altering the
water flow over and through the ground.
To drain the bogs that used to exist before the arrival of the European settlers,
farmers had straightened the creek, thereby turning it into a channel (Fig. 9a). These
changes allow the water to flow away faster – with the effect that in the summer
months, the creek is but a trickle (10–20 l/s), supplying insufficient water for resident
farmers to water their fields. A considerable number of wells are used for irrigation.