Learning Water Filtration: Kaleidoscope Day at Rucker Boulevard School

By Donna Stokes, District Education Specialist, Coffee County Soil and Water Conservation District, New Brockton, AL

On November 16, 2007, Coffee County Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) took part in Kaleidoscope Day at Rucker Boulevard School in Enterprise, Alabama. The annual educational event featured professionals from various careers including teachers born in foreign countries, a local pharmacist, caricaturist, and other interesting individuals. Rucker Boulevard School teacher Judy Taylor was the coordinator of Kaleidoscope Day.

Throughout the morning, students rotated to different classrooms to watch presentations and learn about careers, hobbies, or other interesting activities in our world. I presented a conservation topic about water filtration.

Students were asked to explain several ways that they use clean water. After explaining the importance of clean water sources, I demonstrated a water filtration activity with the aid of student volunteers. To make it a team effort, each class voted to determine the placement order of various filters to be used in cleaning polluted water.

The students learned that water supplies can become polluted by nature or by people and some filtering methods used to clean water. They found out that some pollutants cannot be removed by filtering, that they can only be removed by chemicals or other measures. They were also informed that some water sources may not be useable at all.

Over 230, 3rd-6th grade students and their teachers participated in the water filtration demonstrations. They discovered that cleaning polluted water is very challenging and that it is important not to pollute our water sources!

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