Wonderful Water June Day 3

This morning we did more Archery, Laser Maze and played a game called "Sound Partners" (the kids partner up and choose an animal call to communicate with, then they close their eyes and have to find their partner just by listening for their call). Then we talked about water pollution and what causes it. We discussed point source and non-point source pollution as well as ways to prevent water pollution. I set up the water pollution model to first show examples of how water pollution occurs and then the kids told me what I should change and do to stop the pollution. Solutions included: fixing a leaking sewage pipe, washing the car with eco-friendly soap, farming without pesticides, sending the factory pipe to the water treatment center instead of straight into the creek, moving livestock further from the creek and planting trees. You can see in the pictures a Before and After of our Water Pollution Model. After snack, we went outside to play the Water Pollution Game (a capture the flag style game). The goal was to have the least polluted water. They would try to run a Pollution card across to the other team's water. If their own water became polluted they had to go get a Solution Card to match the problem and thus prevent or fix the pollution and clean their water.

We also played "Scientists Observe" (3 kids change one thing about themselves...ex: shirt tucked in or shoe untied and the others observe what small thing has changed about them). They also had a lot of fun playing "Hitchhiker" (another awareness game) where the driver has to figure out what is "strange" about the hitch hiker...ex: coughs after each sentence or always tapping their finger.

Then we ate lunch and started our water pollution experiment to answer "Does water pollution decrease the capillary uptake of plants?" We had two cups of water with red food dye in both and added soap to one cup. Then we put celery stalks in each cup and recorded our observations. We will see the results tomorrow. Lastly, we went by the garden to visit the bunnies and then went to the shoals part of the creek. We took a couple nets to try and catch fish or crawfish. We also found some more baby frogs on our hiking trail in what we have named "The Frog Zone" which we walk through very slowly!

P.S. I included a couple more pics of Walter the Water Molecule's Journey from yesterday.