Watersheds Cont'd

Eviroscape

One of the most awesome environmental ed materials is Enviroscapes. They are perfect for teaching about watersheds, point and non point pollution and more.

This year I learned a new teaching strategy from my boss- make a story out of the entire program. Talk about the model as if it were a realistic town, perhaps the one you live in. Introduce the places on the model as your home and neighborhood, the farm you visit, the forest you hike in, the bridge you cross over etc.

Here are the representatives I used for each pollution:

Pesticides = green jello powder

Gasoline = soy sauce

Waste/manure = coco powder + water

trash = tiny ripped up paper

Other chemicals (factory, etc) = red jello powder

Erosion Experiment

To demonstrate the importance of vegetation and even introduce wetlands, I did an experiment that shows how plants and other organic matter can slow the rate of erosion. We poured a cup of water into each of the three containers; pure soil, soil with a thick layer of detritus(leaf litter), and grass. I cut holes in the end of each container. The containers can be any shape or size, I've often seen water bottles sliced in half... that way you don't even have to cut output openings. Make sure the openings are right at the surface of the soil. The water in pure soil mostly ran off, carrying the sediment with it. The leaf litter helped contain some water and "filter" it so to speak. As the kids noticed immediately, the water coming out was lighter in color compared to the first one. The abundant vegetation in the last container does two things, its slows down the release of water because the plants and roots uptake the water instead. Roots and vegetation also help hold the soil together, thus preventing erosion during large rainfalls. The water coming out of the vegetated container is released much slower, there is less of it, and it is clearer in color because little dirt moves along with it!