Lake Champlain Watershed Presentation!

We've been busy learning all about Lake Champlain during the last few weeks.  We brainstormed 5 ways that the lake helps our town of Colchester.

1.  Water - we get our water for cooking and washing from the lake

2.  Recreation - we use the lake for fun like boating, hockey, swimming, and paddle boarding

3.  Tourism - people visit the lake and they bring money to our town hotels, stores, and restaurants

4.  Food - we can eat fish from the lake

5.  Exercise - we use the lake to stay healthy by swimming, kayaking, ice skating, or scuba diving

Yesterday, we had Stephanie Larkin from the Lake Champlain Basin Program, come and talk about ways that our town can harm the lake.  She brought a great watershed model of a town and each child  had the opportunity to "pollute" with food products that we pretended were pesticides, cow manure, oil, grass clippings, fertilizer, soil, and pet waste! We then had a spray bottle rain storm  and watched how the rain water carried these pollutants right into the lake! The kids were mesmerized by this great hands on activity!!  We then talked about ways to help keep the lake clean. We talked about protecting wetlands, using plastic bags for your pet waste, putting up fences around farms and houses, and planting trees and grass to keep soil from eroding into the lake.

                                Here's the watershed model that Stephanie used with the kids.

                                    We started to pollute the lake with "cow manure".

                                    We polluted the lake with oil from cars and machinery.

                                          The rainstorm is starting as a gentle sprinkle.

                                                          The lake is so polluted!

                               We added many buffers to our community to protect the lake!