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Saturday, April 14, 2012

We all live Down Stream...

This final activity involves making a class river.  The students were given the scenario that they have just been given a section of land right on the river that and unlimited income!  They can build anything that they want to on the water.  What would you build?


Students draw a plan of what they would put on this property...

A hotel and amusement park....
A school and hotel

Next, they go back and add pollutions that may happen from the construction, the buildings, the land use...as well as ways they could fix it. (Notice the Riparian buffer???)  We had a great discussion about whether their picture caused a lot of pollution or minimal...

Finally, they laid them all out and created a class river.


This goes along nicely with one of my favorite VA DOE activities...A River Runs through it.  This version actually has land use scenarios written for students to illustrate.  I do this lesson every year in my class.
And Riparian Buffers - a hands on lesson where you actually build a watershed with and without grass.  We will start this in my class shortly so I will post on this in the future.

Another great website:  http://www.watersheds.org/kids/  has activities, videos and simulations from the Missouri watersheds.


4 comments:

  1. I'm actually preparing to do "A River Runs Through It" with my third graders this week... I admit, I did completely re-do the VDOE resources because I'm a little bit of a font and "cute" freak. I also included a planning page to help them sort of the keywords in the scenarios and plan what they need to include in their drawing, and what they can improve after conferencing with another group.

    I can put the whole activity in a big PDF -- would you like it?

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  2. I would love to have your updated version of a River Runs through it!!!!! Yay...you made my day!

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  3. I did this one, too! The kids loved getting to use their plot of land for whatever they wanted, but then we talked about what kinds of waste would be contributed. I think I got the idea from Project WET. Have you done those?

    P.S.- Mrs. Plum, would you let ScienceGal share it with others too? :)

    Jenny
    Luckeyfrog's Lilypad

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  4. So how did the kids take it when they were faced with what their development would do to the river? Did they feel sad and want to change what they did?
    It's a beautiful lesson by the way.

    Patrick

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