BLOG: 30 Years and 30,000 Students

by Marcia Lee, Central Platte Natural Resources District

In 2004, Groundwater Foundation staff approached the Central Platte Natural Resources District (CPNRD) about handing over their flagship youth event—the state’s first Children’s Groundwater Festival, which had been held in Grand Island, Nebraska since it began in 1989.

The CPNRD staff was excited to take on the challenge. In 2005, the Foundation and the NRD co-coordinated the event for a smooth transition. CPNRD staff Kelly Cole, programs coordinator, and Marcia Lee, information/education specialist, have been coordinating it ever since.

“That first year on our own we were both eager and nervous about taking on a statewide event,” said Lee. “The guidance we received from the Foundation assured that everything went smoothly.”

This May marked the 30th year that the festival has brought professionals together to teach youth about all aspects of groundwater. Lee said over the 30 years, the message students take in has remained the same—groundwater is a precious resource and we all have a part in protecting and preserving it.

Over 30,000 students from across the state of Nebraska have attended the Festival over the years. The festival model has been replicated in 42 states in the United States, and in Mexico, Canada, India, and the United Kingdom. At the Nebraska festival, students participate in 25-minute in-depth classroom activities and a stage show that relate to groundwater. Professionals from state and local agencies, environmental organizations, and other volunteers teach about groundwater interactions with surface water and effects of pumping, the Ogallala aquifer, pollinators, stream flows, wetlands, pollution, drinking water, recycling, wastewater, industry use, the water cycle, water filtration, municipal systems, and more.

Festival coordinators set each school’s schedule, placing the students in six different activity topics, where various they learn about their topic through fun hands-on activities, games, and relay races.

Teachers are provided a pretest to give to their students prior to attending the festival and then a post-test following the event. “We’ve found that students retain information better when they are  personally involved in the activities, so we encourage every presenter to make their activity
interactive,” Lee said.

Cole said a few changes have been made over the years. The first was to rename the event the Nebraska Children’s Groundwater Festival and partner with the Grand Island Community Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The Festival Committee reaches out to businesses and individuals each year for donations to cover equipment, materials, and sack lunches provided to students, teachers, presenters, and volunteers beyond the $10,000 that the CPNRD budgets annually for the festival.

A change that will take effect in 2020 is the shift from inviting both fourth and fifth grade students to only fifth grade. The Festival Committee worked with the Nebraska Department of Education to determine which grade-level best fit the Festival with the new science standards, and determined that the festival correlates with fifth grade curriculum. The change will also allow schools to be on an every-other-year rotating invitation.

The festival’s location is also a vital aspect to the number of schools that can attend. Since its inception, the festival has been held in Grand Island, which is a central location for most schools in the state.

“We’re so fortunate to have Central Community College and College Park as partners,” said Cole. “They’ve allowed us to take over their campuses to hold the festival at no cost for 30 years.”

A good indicator that the festival is successful are the evaluations that are returned each year. Teachers, presenters, and volunteers are encouraged to complete evaluation forms to help the coordinators make improvements each year.

Even better indicators are letters from college students. The CPNRD has received several letters from former students who say they appreciate the opportunity to attend the festival as elementary students and that it opened their eyes to their career path.

“It’s incredibly rewarding when we receive those letters,” Lee said. “It’s gratifying to know that the Nebraska Children’s Groundwater Festival has made a personal impact on someone’s life and that they share the same devotion to groundwater that we do.”

Cole and Lee say the event seems to get easier each year and they don’t lose as much sleep as that first year. The hard work is worth it, and they hope the Nebraska Children’s Groundwater Festival continues to impact students— at least another 30,000 Nebraska youth over the next 30 years.

For more information about the Nebraska Children’s Groundwater Festival, visit www.cpnrd.org/groundwater-festival.

BLOG: Free Educator Toolkit

by Jennifer Wemhoff, Groundwater Foundation

The Groundwater Foundation has compiled a variety of educational tools and resources into a convenient downloadable Educator Toolkit, available for free on the Foundation’s website.

The Toolkit is organized by age level, making it easy for elementary, middle, and high school educators to find the tools to best suit their classrooms or extracurricular setting. There are also a series of tools appropriate for all age groups.

The featured tool for both elementary and middle school ages is the Awesome Aquifer Kit. The additional resources can be used to supplement the curriculum.

Elementary resources include fun hands-on activities like the story of Frannie the Fish, Growing with Groundwater, word searches and crossword puzzles, Upcycled Conservation Flowers, Clean Water Challenge, and many more.

For middle school educators, find lesson plans and student worksheets, plus instructions for activities like You Be the Judge, Contamination on the Move, Water Quality Survey, and other free tools.

For high school educators, the featured tool is the Hydrogeology Challenge, a learning tool that introduces students to basic groundwater modeling concepts. Find a guide to Hydrogeology and links to other advanced activities.

There are additional free tools and resources appropriate for all ages - a demonstration of the Awesome Aquifer Kit, the Water1der and 30by30 free mobile apps, and the Groundwater Guardian and Groundwater Guardian Green Site programs.

Find the free educator toolkit, along with other great resources educators can use in the classroom and beyond to help students understand groundwater and how they can take action to protect it, visit www.groundwater.org/kids/classroom.

BLOG: 6 Fun Ways to Learn About Groundwater This Summer

by Jennifer Wemhoff, The Groundwater Foundation

Are you looking for some fun and different things to do with your kids this summer? Here are six ways to have fun learning about groundwater:

1. Dig in the dirt.
Kids love dirt and getting dirty! Find a good spot for them to go nuts and dig a hole. Have them notice how the soil gets wetter the deeper they dig, and talk about the water table, saturated and unsaturated zones. After they're good and dirty, hose them off and talk about how groundwater is recharged.

2. Make an edible aquifer.
There's not much better than a cold treat on a hot summer day! Build an edible aquifer out of ice cream or sherbet, ice cubes, sprinkles, and clear soda and learn about groundwater while eating your yummy creation.

3. Go on a water drop hike.
Explore a park, recreation area, nature center, or other outdoor space and visualize the path a water drop can take when it falls from the sky. Where does a water drop move to after falling on a tree? Or a slide? A roof? The ground?

4. Try out an Awesome Aquifer Kit.
The Kit comes with instructions and materials to do six cool experiments that teach about groundwater terminology, groundwater's role in the hydrologic cycle, the makeup of an aquifer, groundwater contamination, and clean up.

5. Visit a river or stream.
Talk about the connections between groundwater and surface water and gaining and losing streams while enjoying the river view or safely wading in and splashing around.

6. Pick an activity from our online activity library.
We have a library with a ton of fun hands-on, brains-on activities to get kids excited about water. Search the library by age group, key topic, and category to find the perfect fun and educational activity.

BLOG: Girl Scouts and Groundwater

by Jennifer Wemhoff, The Groundwater Foundation

Several years ago, The Groundwater Foundation partnered with Girl Scouts Spirit of Nebraska to pilot a patch program to help Girl Scouts learn about water and find ways they can help protect it. The Let's Keep It Clean and Ask Me About Groundwater patches were born out of this partnership. Patch booklets are available for all levels of Girl Scouts - Daisy, Brownie, Junior, Cadette, Senior, and Ambassador - with fun, hands-on activities for girls to earn the patches.

The past several months have seen a great increase in orders through our online catalog for patches and accompanying patch booklets. It's been fun to see all the places where Girl Scouts are learning about groundwater - the water we drink and the water that grows our food! Materials have been ordered by troops in Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Indiana, New York, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, California, Massachusetts, Arizona, Nebraska, Ohio, Iowa, and Michigan the last quarter.

Get your Girl Scout involved in the Let's Keep It Clean program! Find resources, activity ideas, and more on our website at www.groundwater.org/kids/getinvolved/girlscouts/. If you need more ideas, give us a shout at girlscouts@groundwater.org or 402-434-2740.

My daughter's Daisy troop earned patches!

Brownie Girl Scouts build a well in a cup.

Daisy Girl Scouts learn about water through the story of Frannie the Fish.

Cadette Girl Scouts learned about water and then led activities with a Brownie troop.

  

Junior Girl Scouts see how groundwater moves through a simple groundwater model.

It’s Water-Wise Wednesdays with Frannie the Fish! {Awesome Aquifer Kit: Discover Porosity}

This week in Frannie’s exploration of the Awesome Aquifer Kit is all about discovering the key concept of porosity.

For this activity, you 'll need sand, gravel, a syringe, a small cup, water,
 and a towel.  Frannie predicts that gravel is more porous than sand.

Porosity, in hydrogeology, is the capacity of rock, sand, soil, or other sediments to hold water.  We can measure it through the ratio of the volume of empty space in a particular sentiment to the total volume of the sediment.

We’re going to test the porosity of gravel and sand to discover which one is more porous.

First, we’re going to find out the volume of an empty plastic cup by filling up our syringe to the 35 cubic centimeter (cc) line.  Dispense the water from the syringe into the cup until it’s full to the rim.  Subtract the amount of water left in the syringe from the starting amount of 35cc and record this value.  Frannie found that her cup holds 30 cc.

Empty and dry the cup and then fill it with dry gravel. Fill the syringe again with 35 cc and dispense that water into the cup with gravel.  Subtract the amount left in the syringe from the starting amount of 35cc and record this value.  Frannie found that the cup with gravel holds 17 cc of water.

Empty and dry your cup before filling it with sand. Next fill the syringe with 35 ccs and dispense that water into the cup.  Subtract the amount left in the syringe from the starting amount of 35cc and record this value.   Frannie’s cup with sand holds 12 cc of water.

Fannie discovered that the gravel is able to hold more water and is more porous than sand.

To find the porosity of each material, we first have to determine the volume of material in each cup.  The volume of the sand or gravel in the cup will be equal to the volume of the water the cup can hold when full.  So the volume of our gravel and sand is 30 cc.

Remember that porosity is just the ratio of empty space over sediment so our porosity for gravel is p=17 cc/35 cc = .48 = 48%

Our experimentally determined porosity for sand is p=12 cc/35 cc = .34 = 34%

Frannie was right! Gravel is more
porous than sand!

Searchable Resource Library

By: Jessica Wheeler, The Groundwater Foundation 

Are you looking for a fun, hands-on educational activity about groundwater? Check out The Groundwater Foundation’s new searchable resource library featuring nearly 70 easy to use activity instructions, curriculum guides, how-to videos, crosswords, word searches, coloring sheets, and more! These resources and activities are perfect for use in formal classrooms, extracurricular programs, community outreach events, and more! Search by:

• Age
• Duration
• Key topic (i.e. - water cycle, irrigation, contamination/pollution prevention, etc.)
• Category (i.e. - arts and crafts, outdoor, messy, etc.)

You can also search for activities and resources by name, such as “Aquifer in a Cup.” Results display an image of the activity, the activity name, a description and link to how-to videos (if available), and a link to additional details and to download the instructions.

Check out this tool and let us know what you think by completing a brief survey!

Support for the development and launch of this online resource library was provided by a Public Information and Education Mini-Grant from the Nebraska Environmental Trust, administered by the Nebraska Academy of Sciences.

6 Ways to Educate Kids About Groundwater

6 Ways to Educate Kids About Groundwater

by Jennifer Wemhoff, The Groundwater Foundation

Today's youth are tomorrow's leaders and decision-makers. Helping them understand groundwater, and their role in protecting it, is an important part of the work we do. Plus, it's fun!

1. Make it hands-on.

"I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand." Kids learn and retain much more when learning in an experiential setting, rather than passively receiving information. The Groundwater Foundation has a number of hands-on educational activities on our website. A searchable filter and even more fun, hands-on, brains-on activities are in the works, so stay tuned for more details!

2. Disguise the learning as play.

Kids don't realize their learning about turbidity when their squishing their toes in a muddy pond, or about stormwater when they're painting a rain barrel. Incorporating elements of learning into elements of play makes kids forget something is "educational."

3. Send the message home.

Make and take activities (they make something as part of the educational event, then take the item home) are great ways to ensure the message goes home. Growing with Groundwater and Water Cycle Bracelets are great examples of make and take activities.

4. Make the message simple, applicable, and actionable.

Kids want to do something, and get excited about making a difference. A simple message - you can protect groundwater - is enough, especially if you give ideas for what they can do.

5. Make demonstrations engaging.

Hands-on activities are best, but can be made even better when combined with a fun, engaging demonstration. Get kids involved in the demonstration in some way - adding contaminants to Frannie's water bowl, pointing out the water table in an Awesome Aquifer Kit.

6. Do it more than once.

A one-time exposure to groundwater education is better than nothing, but experience has taught us that there can be a greater impact if the same message is presented to the same group multiple times.

It's all of our responsibility to protect groundwater. Part of that is making sure the next generation of stewards have the knowledge and tools to become thoughtful and effective decision-makers in the future.

For more ideas, tools, and resources to educate youth, visit our website.

Heading to Camp!

I'm so excited - next week is The Groundwater Foundation's "Outdoor Adventures in H2O" Summer Day Camp! It's been a busy preparation time for Foundation staff, but the adventures the students will have will be well worth the time and effort. The camp will get kids out of the classroom and into nature where they will get wet and have fun while learning about water. And I would be remiss if I didn't thank our camp partners and sponsors - Bright Lights, Sam's Club/WalMart State Giving Program, and U.S. EPA Region 7.


The week includes some exciting field trips, including visits to Schramm State Park and Aksarben Aquarium, Holmes Lake, Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center, Branched Oak Organic Farm, and Pfizer Inc. Students will take part in hands-on, brains-on activities to make their camp experience lasting, like designing and installing a rain garden, painting rain barrels, using GPS units in a scavenger hunt, hiking through a tallgrass prairie to a groundwater-fed spring, performing water tests, building water filters, building aquifer models out of sand and gravel as well as ice cream, and fishing.


Granted, I may be a bit biased, but to me, the week sounds like a fun adventure! I think I'm looking foward to it as much as the kids!


Keep up with what's happening during camp (Monday through Friday, June 15-19) by following The Groundwater Foundation on Twitter (http://twitter.com/groundwaterfdn) and/or Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Groundwater-Foundation/45882768475).

Stay tuned for camp photos and videos!