Virden Collegiate Wetland Center of Excellence - Itinerary
Detailed Description of the Wetland Games (with materials list) (does not include what was done in 2015 & 2016)
Squirrel game –
materials; bucket of wiffel balls
Materials - bucket of wiffel balls
Nature drawing game
Materials – pieces of paper (cut into quarters), pencils (enough for half of the students)
Goose game
Materials – Carpet squares (12), Soft balls (8)
Cloud game
Materials – (2) 5 gallon buckets, (2) large sponges,(2) ice cream pales
Scat/ footprints
Materials - rubber scat, animal prints
Binoculars
Materials - Binoculars
Nature Walk
Materials - none
Critter Dipping
Materials - chest waders, white tubs, dip-nets, critter ID sheets
If time permits...
Materials - bucket of wiffel balls
- Ask each child to pick a partner
- Each pair picks an area to be their “home”
- One partner stays at the home to protect the food (wiffel balls), the other tries to collect as many “acorns” as possible by bringing one at a time back from the middle
- The “squirrels” can try and steal acorns from other squirrels homes
- After all the acorns are gone from the middle let the game continue for a few minutes to give the kids a chance to steal acorns, then have each pair count their acorns
- Have students return the acorns to the middle, remove 5-10 balls each round
- This teaches the students about competition for food (talk about this after the game)
Nature drawing game
Materials – pieces of paper (cut into quarters), pencils (enough for half of the students)
- Have students sit at picnic tables and close their eyes for 2-3 minutes Tell students to draw what they hear
- When everyone is finished ask if anyone would like to share their drawing
Goose game
Materials – Carpet squares (12), Soft balls (8)
- Have everyone stand on a mat (only 3 people on each mat)
- Tell students the mats are their habitats as geese
- Tell students the mats are their habitats as geese
- Have 2 people volunteer to be hunters
- The students must run across to the other side where there are more mats to show migration, the hunters throw balls at them and if they are hit, they are out and become hunters
- Take away a mat after every migration and talk about the reasons geese lose habitats, industrialization etc.
- This games teaches kids about survival
Cloud game
Materials – (2) 5 gallon buckets, (2) large sponges,(2) ice cream pales
- Split kids into 2 groups
- Have each group line up behind their 5 gallon bucket which is full of water, a few meters away the empty ice cream pails
- Each group has a sponge
- Have kids line up single file between their pails
- The person closest to the water bucket starts by dipping it in the water, it is then passed down the line to each person, and last person squeezes the water into the ice cream pail
- The sponge is passed back down and the process repeats
- After 5 minutes whoever has the most water in their pail wins
Scat/ footprints
Materials - rubber scat, animal prints
- Lay out all of the rubber scat and prints
- Cement picnic table have students try and guess which scat and prints belong to each animal
Binoculars
Materials - Binoculars
- Students go in pairs with a set of binoculars each
- Walk out to the lookout area and ask students what they see, birds, animals, etc.
Nature Walk
Materials - none
- Walk down to the critter dipping area and ask students to tell us if they see anything interesting such as scat or insects
Critter Dipping
Materials - chest waders, white tubs, dip-nets, critter ID sheets
- Take kids down over the bridge to critter dipping area, have everyone get a tray and critter identifying sheet and a net.
- The group leader can wear chest-waders and go deeper into the water to get specimens.
- Have students put any interesting finds into a large tray to look over as a group at the end.
If time permits...
- Geocaching Activity – Handheld Garmin GPS units required for this activity - Excellent resource - Geocaching,com
- South-Central Eco-Institute water quality sampling