Randy Explorer: Randy the bioindicator: Rivers, fountain of life

Randy the bioindicator: Rivers, fountain of life · Dec 14, 10:28 PM

This is the 6th worshop…

Activity I

1. We made a model from waste to represent the soil (sponge), a river ( bottle top) and an aquiferous (bottle).
2. While we put water over the sponge we explained how soil absorbs rain and help to form aquiferous. We dumped some food coloring over the sponge and told a story about how a company polluted the soil; we put more water and asked what was happening? Soon the kids understood that everything was contaminated, soil, water and the aquiferous
3. We told them that those soils were useless for farming so a company decided to build houses (we put aluminum foil over the sponge to simulate pavement). The people that moved to that neighborhood were very dirty people and throw all the garbage on the streets, so when it rains all the water and garbage goes to the river, soon a flood was produced.
Kids rapidly understood and felt related with the subject due to similar situations they saw on the news or heard from their relatives.

expérience

Activity II

In a large container we put a fish shape sponge with clean water, we named the fish (Pedro, Nemo, Cuezo, kids picked the name).
We distribute script cards and materials. The cards tell the story of the fish and the materials represented what happens in the story. As the students with the script cards read, those with the materials dumped them into the container. Every student gave a descriptive adjective each time we asked the question “How is the fish?

Following the story order there are some of the kids answers:
Happy, because the water is clean
Calm
Sad, because the water is polluted
He is sick with fever, nauseas and diarrhea
Bad heart
He doesn’t have the strength to swim
He doesn’t have food
Polluted
Dead?
He is dead

This is how our experiment looked at the beginning and at the end:

poisson vivant

poisson mort

Kids soon made the relation between the experiment and what is happening to our rivers. They reflected when we offer them the “after water” to drink. We ended the activity talking about how we need to change our habits to avoid rivers pollution.

Actividy III

We created “Water Trivia” a contest to measure how much the kids had learned so far.
We divide the group in two teams, named them and choose a question by chance; the team that answered right gains a point
The prize was candy. These are the questions we made:

jeu de questions réponses

Name three uses we give to trees
Which is the difference between see and observe?
What is garbage? Name three examples.
What is waste? Name three examples.
What material takes longer to decompose?
What material takes less to decompose?
From all the water on Earth, what percentage is appropriate for human consumption?
What is an aquiferous?
Name three reasons why we should not litter
Name three water pollutants
Who is Randy?
What are the uses we can give to waste?
What happens in the water cycle?

What about you ?
Do you have the answers ?

Foundation Randy Explorer