Today, we visited Ralph Klein Park and participated in a program called "Marsh Madness." Our teacher, Sunita taught us all about the importance of wetlands. Wetlands are important because they soak up and hold on to water. They can hold a lot of water like a sponge, which prevents flooding. They even give water in a drought. They also clean the water so it's safer for us to drink like a pollution filter. They prevent forest fires because there aren't many trees in the grassland/wetlands. Wetlands also provide a habitat for lots of animals (insects, birds, mammals, fish).
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| A Canada Goose family with goslings |
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| A Muskrat that swam under our dock! |
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| City Watersheds Model |
In the picture above, Sunita showed us places where humans make pollution. For example, factories, farms because of livestock, garbage, dog poop, dust from construction and farms, and salt/sand on our winter streets. We compared the cleanliness of the water before and after she added sponges to represent the wetlands. It was SO much cleaner when the wetlands were there.
Here are a few photos and student quotes about the day:
My favourite part was...
"the pond dipping because I like how I got to catch and identify different types of animals that live in the wetland." ~ Davyd
"the pond dipping because I like to study insects that live in the water." ~ Isar
"the walk because I got to see around the park and see the animals." ~ MM
"the pond dipping because I learned what animals are in the water." ~ SS
"there are ducks taking their ducklings to swim." ~ Jaivivaan
"the pond dipping because I like all the animals that I got to discover." ~ Nollan
"when a muskrat scared me when I was catching a big leech." ~ Matin
"the pond dipping because we got to see all the animals living in the pond." ~ Milu
"the pond dipping because I like to study the creatures in the water." ~ AK
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| On our way to the dock to do our pond dipping |
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| Here, we took turns walking through the middle of the two lines. We were pretending to be the wetland filtering the pollution from the water. |
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| We tried to guess the animal on our back by asking Yes-No questions. Then, we added them to the board of a wetland area to show each animal's habitat. |
