I have taken youth in this age category to a small stream and used a small hand net to collect aquatic invertebrates -- have one of the youth put the net in contact with the bottom and another to stir up the bottom just upstream. Place the collected specimens in a white plastic tub so everyone can see them and you can identify them and talk about their role in stream ecology. You can easily get a kit for this such as the LaMotte Aquatic Bug Kit: http://www.lamotte.com/pages/edu/3-0030.html
You can go a step further and do some water sampling, relating the specimen collection to water temperature and quality. I've used a water monitoring kit to measure basic water quality parameters: http://www.lamotte.com/component/option,com_pages/mid,/page,69/task,item/ I have also had the youth explore and sample for soil organisms using simple garden hand tools. A little raking and shallow digging in forest duff soil results in discovery of a variety of arthropods, annelids, gastropods, etc., leading to a discussion on their roles in the ecosystem. In all of these cases, there is an emphasis on returning the animals to the exact place where they were found and restoring the disturbed areas as much as possible. If you want, I can email you an idea sheet produced for youth outdoor explorations (it was prepared for area church youth groups, so it does have an Oregon emphasis and a religious component). Warren W. Aney Senior Wildlife Ecologist 9403 SW 74th Ave Tigard, OR 97223 (503) 539-1009 (503) 246-2605 fax -----Original Message----- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Melissa Barlett Sent: Sunday, 17 July, 2011 09:00 To: [email protected] Subject: [ECOLOG-L] Animal Summer Camp Activities Hello Ecolog! I'm working at a Girl Scout camp this summer, and this week's theme is all about animals, and I'm looking for activities to do with 6-7th graders (11-13 years old) about animals of any kind! Thanks for anything you have! -- Dr. Melissa A. Barlett Dept of Microbiology University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01003 Phone: (413) 577-0447 Email: [email protected] www.Geobacter.org <http://www.geobacter.org/>
