Iowa Children's Water Festival

“A Splash of Educational Fun”

Hosted by:

Des Moines Area Community College

Ankeny, Iowa

      UNI Students involved in the summer water quality research education internship were invited to be presenters at the 2003 Iowa Children's Water Festival.  5th graders from across Iowa were bussed to the community college campus for a day of fun learning.

         The Iowa Children's Water Festival goal is to teach basic environmental education and science from a fun interactive perspective, so the students will want to learn and integrate what they see and hear throughout the day into their daily lives. 

       UNI students Jennifer Rouse, Joe Silva, and Katie Venter presented the program: "The Survival of Freshwater Minnows."  The hands-on interactive lab taught the principles of color adaptation, counter-shading, and animal defense behaviors.  It also taught students about the scientific method, the food web, and laboratory basics.  The presenters tied this together with water quality by having the students discover how destruction of this organisms habitat would affect the survival of the organism as well what types of human actions are affecting them.

     The students ended the program with a fun slimy neighbor of the minnow. The LEECH!  The kids definitely enjoyed this fun scientific lab.