Cowherd Friends of the Fox River Field-tripCowherd Friends of the Fox River Field-trip

Last week the 6th grade class at Cowherd Middle School hosted an “indoor field trip” to learn about ecology and healthy waterways.

There were three main parts to the classroom “field trip” actually held in our library, the first being an enviroscape, which is a model built to show the effects of water pollution and ways humans impact their communities. The second part was an interactive exercise that uses cards to show students different creatures they may find in a stream. Students found their match of adult/immature cards to understand how the stream is part of the life cycle of many species at various stages.

This activity plays into the part three, where students applied what they have learned by exploring a large mock stream/ecosystem that has set abiotic and biotic factors that students used to determine the health of their stream. It was  done in two groups, each group had their own stream (a blue trap) that had objects such as rocks, aquatic plants, and more with images of stream creatures.

Other topics learned included local pollution sources (factories, farm runoff) and what we can do to make a difference in our own community.