LIHU‘E — How many drops of water can fit on a penny? How many paper clips can you float in a cup of water? Those were questions posed to more than 660 fifth-grade students at the Make A Splash, Project
LIHU‘E — How many drops of water can fit on a penny? How many paper clips can you float in a cup of water?
Those were questions posed to more than 660 fifth-grade students at the Make A Splash, Project WET Water Festival, Friday, hosted and coordinated by the county Department of Water.
Faith Shiramizu, the DOW’s public relations specialist, said this is the sixth year the department has hosted the event at the Pua Loke park with help from numerous government and community agencies and volunteers.
The event was open to all fifth grade students in all of Kaua‘i’s schools — public, private and home, Shiramizu said. All but two public schools and two private schools accepted the DOW’s invitation to participate resulting in 32 classes and 663 students converging on the park.
“This comes at the right time for us,” said Laurelle Catbagan, a fifth-grade teacher from ‘Ele‘ele School. “We’re having Career Day at our school today, but I think the students will get more out of this event because next week the fifth-grade class will be doing water quality testing.”
The 10 interactive stations set up and manned by DOW staff, community volunteers and students from the Kapa‘a High School Jr. ROTC program helped the fifth graders learn about the water cycle and how water gets polluted.
“We’ll be testing water in Hanapepe and Salt Pond in three different areas, so what the students are learning today will help them when they collect samples next week,” Catbagan said.
In the H2Olympics area, sponsored by and manned by Kukui‘ula Development Co. volunteers, students learned about adhesion, the attraction of water molecules to other materials as a result of hydrogen bonding; cohesion, the attraction of water molecules to each other as a result of hydrogen bonding; and surface tension, or the attraction among water molecules at the surface of a liquid creating a skin-like barrier between air and underlying water molecules.
Water’s surface is so strong it can support insects, paper clips and needles, event participants said.
Other interactive areas included “Aqua Bodies,” an area where students learned about how water is the main ingredient of all living organisms. “No Bellyachers” had students working through demonstrations and a game of tag to show how illness-causing bacteria and viruses are spread by water.
“The Incredible Journey” had students spinning bottles and learning about the movement of water within the water cycle, and a “Ground Water Model” moved the students through an underground journey to learn about the sources of water, how it is extracted, stored and delivered to users. It also enabled students to discover how we pollute our natural resources.
“Na Hana Noi‘i” blends science and cultural messages using a story of two ancient Hawaiian families growing kalo along a valley stream and how they share and return water to its source.
Using pieces of yarn attached to water-filled plastic jugs was the graphic “water web” created in “Water Works,” an area where students learned about the interdependence among water users and producers, distinguishing between direct and indirect uses of water.
In the “Sum of the Parts,” students demonstrated how everyone contributes to the pollution of the ocean and water as it flows through a watershed.
The most active and scream-generating station involved “The Long Haul” where students were broken down into two teams in a race between bucket brigades, moving a large volume of water from one container to another using buckets.
This exercise allows students to relate how easy access to water can encourage people to use large amounts of water.
Shiramizu said volunteers came from the DOW, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources Division of Forestry and Wildlife, the East and West Kaua‘i Soil and Water Conservation Districts, All Saint’s Church, Sybee Design, the Kukui‘ula Development Co., Kaua‘i Police Department, Kaua‘i Fire Department, Oceanic Time Warner, retired school teachers and the Kapa‘a Jr. ROTC.
“We really appreciate the high school students because in addition to leading the groups, the Jr. ROTC students have the responsibility of breaking down after the event,” Shiramizu said.
Project WET was formed in 1984, dedicated to the mission of reaching children, parents, teachers and community members of the world with water education.
For more information, visit www.projectwet.org.
