First Grade has been having a lot of fun learning about different interesting scientists. One interesting famous scientist we have studied is Rachel Carson. Rachel Carson was not like others..she was an individual who loved nature. She didn’t want plants, animals, or people to get hurt. Carson discovered a poison that caused pollution in our environment that made the air and water dirty. She wanted to help make our environment cleaner, so she spent a lot of time in the woods to learn more about nature. While camping in the woods, Carson would often run out of supplies, so she had to learn how to live off the land. Water was very important to Carson, and she discovered ways to use natural water from streams and rivers for drinking water. Rachel Carson was an interesting scientist who has taught us a lot about caring for nature and the importance of keeping our environment clean.

After reviewing Rachel Carson, we read a great book The Water’s Journey that told a beautiful story of what happens to our water over time and how it travels from snow in the tall mountaintops to water in the soil… and down the mountain…forming a small brook… turning into streams…running off a cliff…pouring into a valley…running into streams overflowing into banks…flowing into a large lakes…into rivers…then into a reservoir…back into the river..and into a port….mixing fresh water with salt water from the ocean….into the deep ocean…then evaporating mist back into the sky…and finally back to snow! This picture book was a great way to start our lab today, as we are discussing the process of what water may go through to become clean, drinking water.

First graders then viewed the items on their lab table… there was a clear, glass jar of murky water. We wondered from where did this water come? students thought ...Certainly it is not clean, drinking water! Students used magnifying glasses to observe the murky pond water. We then viewed our lab sheets to plan an experiment. We started with a question: What do we want to know? We want clean water. How do we make clean water like Rachel Carson used to do when she was out in the woods living off the land? We then made predictions. We think that we will be doing some mixing and filtering to make clean water. We observed the items on our lab table to help make good predictions. Students then made a plan to follow the 4 step process of the lab sheet. We will then observe and record data, and last we will draw conclusions.

First students observed the dirty pond water. Next, we followed the first step to making clean water: coagulation and sedimentation. We then added 1 tablespoon of Alum (aluminium potassium sulfate)…we stirred, we shook, and then we observed. The pond water was cleaner! Students continued the experiment and followed the second step to making clean water: filtration. We used tripod funnels, coffee filters, and we also added 1 tablespoon of sand and 1 tablespoon of gravel to the coffee filter. Students mixed the sand and gravel and then poured the pond water into the filter and through the funnel. It was amazing to see the change in the new filtered pond water! It suddenly appeared very clean and clear! Last, first graders followed the third step of making clean water: disinfection. Students added 2 drops of bleach into the pond water jars. We then stirred… and voila! The pond water looked almost good enough to drink!!....but of course we didn’t do that! It was very exciting to see the process of making clean, clear water from murky pond water. Following the three main steps in our experiment was fun…Maybe Rachel Carson used a similar process years ago!