5th Graders Crazy for Conservation (part II)

Watch the Video of this Event

PICTURE CAPTION: Marty Gugelman, Curtis NRCS Office, introduces Medicine Valley Elementary 5th grade students to instruments used to lay out conservation practices at the Middle Republican NRDs 11th Annual Conservation Craze.

(Curtis, NE) – A cluster of small tracks circling each other; a tree stump; a set of bloody bird prints in front of a stump; and a cotton ball. What happened here?

This is what 85 fifth graders were asked to figure out at the Middle Republican NRD’s Wildlife CSI station last Tuesday. True to the many Crime Scene Investigation shows students have seen on TV, the game allowed students to investigate wildlife scenes to find out what animals were involved and just what exactly happened. This fun way for students to learn more about wildlife including their tracks, predator/prey relationships and habitats was one of six “conservation stations” featured at the 11th Annual Conservation Craze.

Other stations included: a Natural Resources District tour through the office, Dripial Pursuit, Oak Tree: Our National Tree, Land Treatment, Well Done Wells, and Soils.

Students from Southwest, Maywood, Hitchcock County-Culbertson, Hitchcock County-Stratton, Wauneta-Palisade and Medicine Valley Elementary Schools participated in the event.

Megan Kelly, a student at Southwest Elementary in Indianola took home an important message about water. “[All water is] connected because surface water soaks down into the aquifer, which is groundwater,” she said.

5th Grade Conservation Craze takes place each fall and is sponsored and presented by the Middle Republican Natural Resources District, in partnership with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Common Scents Greenhouse and Nursery, Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture, Nebraska Well Drillers Association, and Nebraska Raptor Recovery. Schools in the NRD's portions of Frontier, Red Willow, Hayes, and Hitchcock counties are eligible to attend.

Event Coordinator Kara Gall said, “Natural Resources are all around us, this is the environment in which we live. Our students can learn a lot about natural resources from a textbook, but if they can participate hands-on I think they’re going to be much more engaged and retain a lot more.”

Classrooms competed for conservation curriculum to be used in their classrooms. All schools went home with activities to further their knowledge of Nebraska’s Natural Resources.

So what exactly did happen in that Wildlife Crime Scene? Imaginative 5th grade investigators hypothesized many versions of the crime, but the right answer was this: A bird flies over three rabbits. The rabbits circle in panic. The “bloody” cotton ball indicates that the bird attacks one rabbit. A set of bloody bird prints in front of the tree stump suggests that the bird lands before it flies up in a tree to eat the rabbit.

September 22, 2006