Science of Caves and Clean Water

Today Beck and Elizabeth were scheduled to do some school work out of my Science Chapter Tests curriculum. The topics that were discussed were: rivers, caves, and an introduction to water quality. After learning that the Nile is the longest river system in the world and that the Amazon had the most water in a river system that was shorter, Beck and Elizabeth were introduced to what happens when water seeps through the ground into underground caverns. They learned that underground water is important all over the world, but what really caught there attention was spelunking, stalagmites, and stalactites. This was a perfect opportunity to have some outdoor, hands-on fun. But what to do since there are no underground caves near us (at least that I know of, LOL). So, I did what I always love to do and reached into my Mary Poppins bag and pulled out a spoonful of sugar filled learning fun! The first thing that I had Beck and Elizabeth do was to gather a bunch of rocks. This is not hard since we live in an area that is full of rocky hillsides. Another great reason to live rural! I asked Beck and Elizabeth to tell me which cave feature was a pile of eroded rocks on the floor of the cave. After an intense debate on whether it was stalactites or stalagmites, the consensus was that the correct one was stalagmites. Beck said it was correct because stalagmites are like mountains and mountains are bigger at the bottom. So, with that decided I had Beck and Elizabeth build a stalagmite out of the rocks they found like this:

Once that was done, both Beck and Elizabeth had an imaginary adventure fighting bats and crawling around. They eventually found the right path and climbed down their rope to get into the cavern. Here is Elizabeth
climbing down.

And Beck:

They had fun looking around and trying to see where the stalagmites and stalactites would be in their cave then Elizabeth found their stalagmite here:

After their fun with cave spelunking, stalagmites, and stalactites it was time to learn a little about clean water and how important it is to the environment. The chapters focuses a lot on rivers, estuaries and their habitats, then concluded with a brief discussion on clean water and the importance of not pollutant the resources we have. I talked with my husband and he described our septic system and well system to the children. It was great for them to see that our family was just like the people in the science chapter book that pulled their water up to drink from deep down in the earth through their wells. He also showed Beck and Elizabeth were our grey water system lets our sink and laundry water out here:

They could not really see it, but here it is closer up:

And here it is in use:

He explained that our grey water system lets the water that is not polluted from our house out and into our trees. Our grey water system helps to water the trees and keep a large portion of our immediate area green and healthy. At the same time we discussed a few products that we use around the house that we have to make sure do not contain harmful chemicals because we can just as easily hurts our trees and help them if we use things like bleach and it gets into these areas. We have also used ‘greener’ and safer cleaners for a long time too to help make sure that our immediate tree families do not get hurt by use living here. They kids thought it was kind of cool that their water from doing the dishes would end up just over the slope and in their favorite trees. With this system our children get to see that we recycle water in our home to help lessen the impact we make on our local environment. It is always fun to tie our lessons into our daily lives. It was great to see Beck and Elizabeth using their imaginations on their spelunking trip and getting to see how they can help the environment through recycling their water.

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Jill of Enchanted Homeschooling Mom is the homeschooling mother of 2 awesome children (Beck and Elizabeth), a loving wife, who brings readers along on her family's homeschooling journey in their rural setting. She enjoys blogging about everything related to her homeschooling experience, from the daily happenings of Beck and Elizabeth, to the adventures in nature around them, to her family's 4 rescue dogs, to just about anything that makes their homeschooling journey magical. Jill also takes the time to create printables for her homeschool classroom that she provides at her EHM Member's Only Website. She has a wide variety of printables, curriculums, unit studies, and holiday related items that everyone is sure to find educational, useful, fun, and appropriate. You can follow with Jill's magical homeschooling journey at enchantedhomeschooling.net, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and Pinterest.

So happy to have Jill, from Enchanted Homeschooling Mom, share one of her homeschooling adventures! Jill has created so many amazing printables to go along with what her kids are studying, and has made them available to everyone in her Member's Only Website. It is just $15 for a lifetime membership which includes any new printables she comes up with!

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