Nature School
March 26th, 2012
Water and Rain
Welcome song. Welcome new friends.
Today we are going to learn a little about water! We’ve talked about water before. Do you all remember? Why do you like water? (swim, drink, splash, bath, ocean, waterfalls, etc.). Do you know that we could not live on earth without water? What other creatures need water to live? Do plants need water too?
Explorations and Observation Time:
Encourage the kids to look our for animals and birds that live at the wetland, point out the beaver lodge, snags, nests, and wetland plants.
Did you know that the ground we are standing on is really a huge, gigantic sponge?! Alright, all the kids close their eyes. All the parents are going to jump one time on the count of three. One, two, three! Did the kids feel the ground move? That's because the soil here is saturated or filled with water.
Let’s think about the plants that live here. Do you see the trees that have their roots and trunks in the water? Most of these trees are willow trees. Willows like water. Can you say it with me? There are also lots of tall grasses like rushes, reeds, and cattails. These plants provide habitats, food, and security to the birds and animals that live here.
Song-
There is something we need to live and water is its name-o.
W-A-T-E-R, W-A-T-E-R, W-A-T-E-R, and water is its name-o.
Story- Drippy the raindrop
Once upon a time there was a raindrop named Drippy (picture of drop of water). Drippy was having fun! He was doing his favorite thing in the whole wide world- lying on his back floating in the ocean. He looked up at his good old friend Mr. Sun, who had just come up (hold up picture of sun). Mr. Sun rose higher and higher and Drippy got hotter and hotter!
Just then, Drippy saw a big, dark cloud moving across the sky. “I wish I could go up to that cool looking cloud and cool down a bit!”
All of a sudden, Drippy felt himself rising up into the air! He was evaporating! Can we all saw evaporate together? EVAPORATE!
He landed softly on a huge, fluffy cloud. There were thousands of other drops of water too. One of the drops of water called out to Drippy, “Ahoy there! I’m Salty!” (hold up picture of another drop of water with captain hat on).
“I’m Drippy! Nice to meet you. Where are we headed?”
“We are going right toward those mountains over there and it looks like a storm is a brewing. If things get rough, just abandon ship. Jump right off the cloud and toward the earth” Salty said.
After awhile, things did start getting rough. Drippy got ready to jump. 1-2-3-JUMP! Drippy was raining now! He fell with millions of other raindrops down toward the forest near the mountains.
Drippy landed right on a tree (show picture of tree with roots). He slid down on leaf onto a branch and then down the trunk. Down, down, down he slid down the trunk and into the soil near the tree’s roots. Wow! What an adventure we was having.
When we reached the soil, he found lots of other water drops there too. They were filling up the soil pores. He sunk deeper into the soil and into an underground stream. Then, guess what happened? The underwater stream came out of the ground as a spring!! The stream was now above ground. The stream eventually led him out into the ocean again!
Drippy leaned back, floating on his back and looked up at his good friend Mr. Sun again. “Hello there, Mr. Sun!” What an adventure I’ve had! I’ve been through the water cycle. Can you all say WATER CYCLE? I’m learned so much and seen so much of our beautiful earth. What a wonderful world we live in!”
Game: Find your partner puzzle. I found various pictures in national geographic of lakes, animals, insects, ocean life, etc. I laminated each picture then cut it in half. There are enough half pieces for each child to have one. Give each child a puzzle piece and ask them to find their partner with the other half.
Extra Parent Info:
Willows- 5 species that live here at Marsh Island. Native Americans used willow shoots for the same purpose we use asprin. Asprin was derived from willows-
The leaves and bark of the willow tree have been mentioned in ancient texts from Assyria, Sumer and Egypt as a remedy for aches and fever, and the Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates wrote about its medicinal properties in the fifth century BC. Native Americans across the American continent relied on it as a staple of their medical treatments, because willows contain salicin, a substance that chemically resembles aspirin. It temporarily relieves headache, stomachache, and other body pain. Salicin is metabolized into salicylic acid in the human body, which is a precursor of aspirin. In 1763, its medicinal properties were observed by the Reverend Edward Stone in England. He notified the Royal Society, who published his findings. The active extract of the bark, called salicin, was isolated to its crystalline form in 1828 by Henri Leroux, a French pharmacist, and Raffaele Piria, an Italian chemist, who then succeeded in separating out the compound in its pure state. In 1897, Felix Hoffmann created a synthetically altered version of salicin (in his case derived from the Spiraea plant), which caused less digestive upset than pure salicylic acid. The new drug, formally acetylsalicylic acid, was named Aspirin by Hoffmann's employer Bayer AG. This gave rise to the hugely important class of drugs known as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willow)
Salmonberry and Thimbleberry- Native americans used these berries to make fruit leather
Nootka Rose hips- made into tea. Great source of Vitamin C
Bubbles in water- escaping methane gas from decaying plant material
A little history:
150-ft long Long house or potlatch houses- stood where UW steam smokestack and edgewater apartments. Where you see University Village, Ravenna Creek (now underground in the North Trunk Sewer) once emptied into the lake and was one of the highest salmon spawning creeks in the area.
The pathways- the city has built this path consisting of floating spans, bridges, viewing platforms which are anchored through the peat bog to the bedrock 80 feet below.
Animals:
Animals and birds to look for: great blue heron, eagles, buffleheads, coots, wood ducks, beavers, and western pond turtles.
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