On Thursday, September 19th the Fourth Graders
attended the Topeka Water Festival. The festival is an exciting water education
program which focuses on water related topics including the water cycle, water
history, chemistry, pollution, water economics, consumption, water rights,
water conservation, and water stewardship. These topics are explored in
engaging, hands-on and creative ways to promote critical thinking, problem
solving, and responsible decision making in water related issue.
At our first station students how we get Kansas River water
clean enough to use, clean enough to put back into the river, and all the steps
in between. Using a model of a town and water pipes students had the
opportunity to fix broken pipes and while doing so, got a little wet. Our second station was called H₂O Olympics.
Here, students learned about water molecules, adhesion, cohesion, and surface
tension. They experimented to find out how many drops of water would fit on the
head of a penny and tried to float paper clips on the top of the water. Next, we visited with the Natural Resources
Conservation Service. At this station we
talked about the amount of water people consume in a day and how people in the
“olden days” had to fetch their water. Two teams took turns pailing water to
collect what they needed for daily use. At our fourth station students learned about
common water. What happens when you share water and someone contaminates it?
Then everyone’s water in contaminated. We learned that it is very important to
be mindful of our water sources. At the
next station, students pretended to be a drop of water on the incredible
journey of the water cycle. At the end of the activity students had made a
bracelet to wear with beads representing different parts of the water cycle.
With Douglas County Conservation District, we learned about adaptations of fish.
Students drew cards to create and draw their own fish! Today, students were
even able to play in the mud! At the River Mud station students modeled a river
valley and talked about how people who live downstream can be affected by what
people do to the water upstream. Garbage
was the topic of discussion at our 8th station From Garbage to
Groundwater. Students were taught how garbage disposal can impact the quality
of our groundwater. With the Kansas Geographic Alliance, students took off
their shoes to walk all over a giant map of the state of Kansas. Students used
red and blue chips to locate rivers and lakes. Then we used orange cones to
locate big cities. We learned that big cities are located by water sources. We
also learned that the Eastern part of Kansas has more water resources that the
Western part. Our final station was with the Franklin County Conservation
District where we used blue plastic cups to represent a pond or lake and chips
to represent pollution. We learned many different things that can cause water
to become polluted.
It was an enjoyable day full of fun activities and learning.
We will be remembering all the valuable information we learned at the Topeka
Water Festival. We will continue our water investigations during Science.
