What’s in your Watershed?

Discover one of the essential roles of wetlands in our watersheds with a hands-on activity.

Recently I had the pleasure of leading a Friday Field Studies class outdoors in a wetland…about wetlands. For a teacher who loves (and I mean LOVES) the Great Lakes, this was an absolute thrill. Friday Field Studies is an optional class I have for my all-online 3rd and 4th grade families during what we hope is the tail end of the pandemic. A local natural sanctuary, Barkhausen Waterfowl Preserve, has allowed me to hold these classes on their fantastic 920 acre park.

I had done a watershed activity from WAVs (Water Action Volunteers) previously with middle schoolers, and knew in this setting that this was a learning experience I wanted to provide for my 3rd and 4th graders. Without having my own physical classroom this year, the gathering of materials was a bit more time consuming, but the benefits were worth it. In addition to my students having fun and learning from the activity, so did sisters, brothers, parents and grandparents who also attended for some fresh air while supporting their student in outdoor learning. Materials, adaptations for hybrid, in-person and full remote, as well as extensions can be found on this lesson plan, feel free to make a copy.

In the activity, students create a model of a watershed that includes a body of water of their choice (river, lake or ocean) as well as a community. Before students designed their watersheds, we brainstormed features of our own community; roads, parks, shops, houses, etc. As the video and lesson plan show, after students create their community, they apply “human impact”. Washable colored markers or powdered fruit drink can be used to model various pollutants that occur when humans are present in an area: litter, oil and salt on roads, industrial waste human waste, agricultural runoff, etc. Then we make it rain with a spray bottle and analyze what happens to our body of water.

I created this recording sheet that students used to plan and write their observations (again, feel free to make a copy).

After analyzing the results, students then repeat the experiment. This time, however, they insert a sponge on or near their body of water that represents the wetland. Another water bottle storm comes, and students have a visual to see what impact the wetland (the sponge) had on reducing the amount of human impact that gets into their body of water.

Wetlands play an important role in our watersheds by providing habitat and promoting biological diversity, helping manage fluctuations in water and flooding and absorbing some of the pollutants that humans deposit. Long regarded as “useless land”, wetlands are essential for our quality of life and long-term, sustainable, survival.

After the activity, students assembled a map of our state, Wisconsin, from the National Geographic Resource Library. On other maps I had printed out ahead of time, we located preserved wetlands in our area and compared them to the size of the Great Lakes watershed. One of my favorite John Muir quotes is “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” This activity was a wonderful hands-on way to understand our connectedness to an under-appreciated but essential ecosystem, the wetland.

We are all in a watershed. When rain lands in your area where does it go? What are the human impacts? By using this mapping activity from National Geographic or other maps, students can feel and understand a greater connection with water and wetlands in their area.

What’s in your watershed?