Spira Day 3: Kazoos, The Lorax, & Mini Ecosystems!

Today we had another fun filled day! We kicked off the day with a lesson on how to build a sustainable mini ecosystem in a jar. The campers were able to use the items collected from yesterday's trip to Roger Williams Park to create their ecosystems in a jar! We were able to go over the major components of an ecosystem and how the small scale factors that we are

observing in the jars play out on a larger scale in real life.

Afterwards we were able to get a little musical as we taught the girls how to create homemade kazoos and harmonicas using common objects like popsicle sticks and straws.

As we moved into the afternoon portion of camp, we watched the Lorax and discussed many of the important themes relating to the environment that come up in the movie. It was fun to watch and sparked insightful discussions on our relationship to the ecosystems around us. To finish up the day, we ended with a water purification lesson and activity. The girls were able to build a water purifier to clean dirty enough to be useful (but not safe for drinking!). This activity also led into a conversation about access to clean water globally and some of the things environmental engineers try to solve when it comes to providing clean water to many people. Campers were able to brainstorm and think about how engineers also take policy and law into consideration when solving various problems. We're almost done with our unit on environmental engineering and already so much has been learned!