Frannie wants to share a fun activity that you can do to learn about watershed basins, runoff and how water moves over landscapes! But first, Frannie wants to review these vocabulary terms with you:
Runoff is the water that flows over the land to surface streams, rivers, and lakes.
A watershed is the land area from which surface runoff drains into a stream, channel, lake, reservoir, or other body of water. Everyone lives in a watershed!
In this activity, Frannie will help you visualize these vocabulary terms with play dough and water!
Materials:
- Play dough
- To make homemade play dough:
- 2 cups flour
- 1 cup salt
- 4 tsp. cream of tartar
- 2 cups of water
- 4 Tbsp. oil
- Additional flour
- Disposable aluminum pan (about 1" deep)
- Spray bottle
- Plastic knife to carve play dough
Instructions:
1. To make homemade play dough: combine flour, salt, cream of tartar, water and oil in a heavy pot. Stir constantly on low heat until the dough comes away from the edge of the pot and makes a soft ball.
2. Using your play dough, create an interesting landscape with mountains and valleys. Have extra flour on hand to work into the dough if it gets sticky. Use clear water to create Frannie's home - a pond.
3. Now mix water and food coloring in your spray bottle and make it "rain" over the landscape you have created. Where does the water go? Why did it go there?
The features of the landscape - the mountains and valleys - decide where the water will go. The runoff from the "rain" went into the surface water we created - Frannie's pond. The water did not go everywhere though. The natural boundaries made by the landscape dictate the direction and where the water will go are what we call watersheds.
Want to learn more about watersheds? Download the Water1der app for your Apple device and take the "Watershed" quiz!
As Frannie was doing her weekly chore of taking the trash out, she couldn't help but notice how full and heavy the bag was. Frannie pushed the trashcan to the end of her driveway and noticed all her neighbors doing the same thing and that got Frannie thinking about how much garbage that her neighborhood alone makes a week! Frannie thought there must a way to keep some of these items from ending up in a landfill. Frannie knew! She could reuse them!
There are a lot of small actions you can take to reuse products instead of throwing them away. This helps reduce the amount of garbage you make, it helps decrease the demand to create new products, and it's a fun to create something new out of something old!
Here are a few ways Frannie reuses items around her house:
Frannie uses her old grocery bags as trash bags.
Frannie repurposed an aluminum foil container for her thread and ribbon.
Frannie created a vase and pencil holder with old glass containers.
Can you think of other ways to reuse items instead of throwing them away? Share your ideas here!
April 19th to the 25th is Environmental Education Week and this Water-Wise Wednesday is Earth Day! Frannie is looking for ways to celebrate! Frannie wants to share with you a few ways she will be learning about the environment this week!
1. Happy Earth Day! Frannie heard about an Earth Day Festival in her pond that she's going to and she suggests you find an Earth Day celebration to attend in your community.
2. Can you clean water? The Clean Water Challenge is a fun challenge you can do with your troop to learn about water Quality.
3. Have you ever had a question about the environment and you wanted to ask an expert? Well now you can! The Environmental Protection Agency is accepting environmental questions via e-mail, askanepascientist@epa.gov, and twitter, @EPAresearch using #envsciq, to answer on their blog "It All Starts with Science."
Can you think of other fun ways to celebrate Environmental Education Week and Earth Day, share your ideas here!
Check out Frannie's blogpost about Water1der to get the basics about this fun, educational app!
Frannie is excited to announce that Water1der is new and improved and ready for download from the Apple App Store! The update to the app allows users to join a group and record their quiz scores. This update makes the app perfect for playing Water1der with your classmates at school! Suggest Water1der to your teachers today!
Download and play Water1der to test your knowledge of groundwater on your Apple device here!
In honor of The Groundwater Foundation's 30th anniversary, Frannie wants to share some fun groundwater facts with you in the form of a quiz! See if you can answer each question correctly, check your answers at the bottom of the post!
1. Groundwater is the water found in the cracks and crevices in the sand and rock below the earth's surface in formations called aquifers. True or false.
2. About how many Americans use groundwater for drinking water?
a. 20%
b. 50%
c. 75%
d. 100%
3. Out of all the freshwater in the world, minus the polar ice caps, about how much is groundwater?
a. 10%
b. 25%
c. 60%
d. 95%
4. The groundwater down under... The largest known aquifer, covering about 660,000 square miles, is the Great Artesian Basin in what country?
5. How many feet of water would the groundwater in the Ogallala Aquifer cover all 50 states with?
a. 1 foot
b. 1.5 feet
c. 2 feet
d. 2.5 feet
6. Surf's up dude! Which state uses the most groundwater in the United States?
Answers
or
Test your knowledge about groundwater and other fun water categories and play The Groundwater Foundation's fun, free app Water1der!
It's April 1st and you know what that means: April Fools' Day! Frannie learned about a fun tradition that she wants to share with you! In France on April 1st, children will make paper fish and try to stick them on their family and friends' backs without them knowing. If you have a fish on your back, you are called a "poisson d'avril" (April fish). It is not clear why a fish is used, but it is believed that the French began celebrating "poisson d'avril" in the late 1500's when the King of France changed the calendar. This change moved the New Year from the end of March to January 1st. People who did not want to switch to the new calendar or kept celebrating the New Year in March had practical jokes played on them.
Frannie loved this idea and decided to color a picture of herself to prank people with! Frannie wants you to join in the April Fools' Day fun and color the picture of Frannie provided or make your own upcycled fish. Want to learn more about upcycling? Check out the Upcycled Clothing Pin Snowflake Ornament blog here.
Frannie decided to print out and color the above photo!
After she was done coloring it, she cut it out and put a piece of tape at the top.
Frannie then stuck the fish on her friend's back! Poisson d'avril!
Happy April Fools' Day!
Frannie is so excited that spring is finally here! She loves the rainstorms that bring about the flowers and trees blooming. Frannie thought about how important rain is to everyone everywhere and remembered hearing about musical instruments that ancient cultures made called rain sticks. It is believed rain sticks were used to bring on rainstorms or to celebrate rain.
To make a traditional rain stick, dried cacti or other hollow material such as bamboo might be used. The hollow tube was pierced with the cactus needles or other pegs and then filled with pebbles, shells, and/or dried beans. The rattle of the loose materials inside the hollow tube creates the sound of falling rain. Frannie wants to celebrate rain by making her own rain stick! She wants you to make one too!
Supplies:
- Empty paper towel tube or mailing tube
- Toothpicks or nails
- Beans, rice, beads, pebbles, or other small hard materials
- Tin foil or sturdy plastic
- Various craft supplies: scissors, tape, glue, markers, paint, glitter, string or yarn, beans, feathers, etc.
Instructions:
1. Cover and secure one end of the tube with the tin foil or plastic
2. Use toothpicks or nails to puncture the tube multiple times. Break off the ends of the toothpicks sticking out to ensure no sharp edges. Ensure the nails are not sticking out.
3. Fill the tube with a handful of rice, beans, etc.
4. Cover and secure the other end of the tube
5. Decorate the tube
Share photos of you or your troop with your rain sticks here!
