Warrick County Conservation Education Programs

Buggy Water Grades 1-3 Length: 45 minutes      This program is an eye-catching way to learn about water quality and why we should all be concerned about it.  Students will get to see how pollutants get into the water supply.  We will learn together about how water quality affects life from a fish's perspective in a story about Tommy the Trout.  Students will then do an activity learning how we can tell if the water in a stream is healthy or not.

Water Quality Testing Grades 7-12 Length: 60 minutes      This is a program to teach students about watersheds and water pollution.  Students will discover what unseen polutants can be found in creek water by performing chemical tests for a real biological problem - poor water quality.  This activity would make a good introduction to an actual water quality monitoring program if you were interested in doing it as a class project.  The program will conclude with the video, "Everyone Lives in a Watershed, the Pigeon Creek Watershed Story." This six minute video addresses some of the problems in Pigeon Creek and what we can do to improve the situation.

Wildlife Olympics Grades 3-7 Length: 55 minutes      Students assume the roles of the wild in the physically active Wildlife Olympic games.  Students become bears to look for one or more components of habitat while dealing with the limitations that actual bears live with.  Later, the students perform an activity wherein some of them become habitat components and some become deer.  In both activities, the lesson is that there is a delicate balance between the habitat that is available to the animals and the amount of animals that exist there.  Students will also discuss how we humans affect the habitats of animals and how together we can protect them.

It's not Dirt, It's Soil! Grades 3-8 Length: 50 minutes      Soil isn't, you know - that awful word...."dirt."  It's a valuable natural resource that we should all appreciate.  Students will learn that all soil is not the same, rather, all soils come in different combinations of three things: sand, silt, and clay.  The class will discover how these three things work together to affect the soil's ability to grow plants.  Students will participate in a truly "hands-in" activity exploring the textures and properties of soils in "texture feely bags."

Soil: "It's What's for Dinner" Grades 1-6 Length: 45 minutes      Just like the sun, air, and water, soil is essential to life as we know it.  Soil is a valuable resource that we must care for, or else it will be lost.  Students will learn that, without soil, we have no hamburgers, potato chips, or even ice cream.  But more animals than just humans depend on the soil for their lives.  The students will learn how one of the most important soil dwelling animals, earthworms, live in the soil.  They will learn how worms help us even though they make their homes underground.  After the lesson, students will learn just how tasty worms really can be.  Don't worry, they're only gummy worms in a tasty treat!

Surveying Grades 9-12 Length: 55 minutes      Have you ever seen those people standing around a construction site or along the road looking through a box on the top of a tripod or holding up a stick with a bunch of numbers on it?  These people were surveyors and this program will teach students about equipment, elevations, contour maps, and watersheds.  Students will be given a contour map and instructions on how to read it.  Then they will go outside and use the surveying equipment.  If time and space permit,  they will map out a small watershed.  The results will be used to show how slope is determined and how it affects the amount of water that flows off the land.

The Lorax by: Dr Seuss Grades 2-6 Length: 45 minutes      A true Dr. Seuss classic, The Lorax includes the usual rhymes and nonsense words of his stories, but it is a powerful tool for the encouragement of natural resource conservation.  The students will first do an activity in which they'll learn how all the things in their environment are connected.  Then they'll talk about why it is important to use one of our natural resources, trees, wisely.  After the activity and discussion, the students will listen to The Lorax as it is read to them.  This presentation is a great way to tie the scientific concepts of natural resources to other curricular areas like reading.

To Be A Tree Grades 1-3 Length: 90 minutes      In this exciting activity, students will learn the different parts of a tree and how they work together.  We'll start by making some leaf rubbings (on paper), bark, vessels (from straws), and other parts that represent the parts of a tree.  Then we'll assemble all these parts on the "trunk" of our tree outfit, a brown paper sack fashioned into a vest that students can wear!  Together, the studetns will form their own forest in a classroom.

The Tree-Mendous Tree Trunk      This kit full of fun and entertaining activities for all levels is available to teachers who have completed the Project Learning Tree (PLT) training.  Funding for these $1,000 kits was made possible through generous donations by Kimball International, Inc.  PLT training is available throughout the state at various times throughout the year.  Examples of items in the trunk include videos, books, CD-ROM programs, cassette tapes, activity guides, models, chemical testing kits, and many other useful, exciting tools.

Coal Country      This interactive computer program educates students about coal as a natural resource and the role that it plays in our lives.  Along with Lumpy, the narrator of the coal story, students will learn about how coal is formed, where it is found, how it is mined, and how coal is used.  Coal Country uses many different audio and visual aids to make for a fun as well as educational experience.

Video Lending Library      The Warrick County SWCD has available for loan an extensive video library for topics related to conservation and natural resources.

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