Day 1 activities
Fish Tagging:
The children learned how to tag fish and the benefits of tagging fish. Then student volunteers helped tag the rainbow trouts by first putting them in water containing anesthesia and then putting the tag on a needle and then putting the tag in the fish. A quote from one of the children about what they learned today "Today I learned how to tag a fish and also different methods of tagging fish" and they would tell their friends "That someone caught a fish with their bare hands almost immediately".
Water Cycle Dice Activity:
The children learned about the extended water cycle in the classroom and then had an activity where each of them represented a water molecule in the water cycle. They rolled special dice to figure where they go to next in the water cycle from the ocean to the clouds to ground water etc. A lot of students commented that this was different and more involved than what they learned in school. A quote from one of the children: "The water cycle isn't very neat and simple like we were taught. We don't get to use very much of earth's water despite how much water the eatth is made of". and another one learned: "That water can go from ocean to cloud to mountain soil and back to the ocean. That a drop of water can stay in the ocean for thousands of years.
Get to know you games:
The children played some games to get to meet the children from the other schools and get to know each other as they will be working in groups chosen randomly. One of the children wrote in their journal to the question Before today I thought: "We would learn more about science and inventions, but we are learning about lot's of stuff and that the teachers are nice and college students are more than I expected which is good." Similarly, another one of the children answered the question Before today I thought: "That we were going to be at campus all week" but now I think: "That there is going to be some great activities that we'll be doing at the mountains.
