Micronesia Challenge Summer Camp, Day 3

This morning we were visited by Marja and Tony from Division of Fish & Wildlife’s Brown Tree Snake Program. They gave a power presentation on the history and current operations of the Brown Tree Snake Program in the CNMI.

They also brought two snake dogs.

Mina is a two year old pit bull/Labrador mix. During a demonstration, Mina was able to find a snake hidden in a bucket…twice!

Jack is a Jack Russell Terrier. The students hid a snake in a bag in the classroom and Jack was able to find it in seconds.

The kids were able to hold the snake...and so did I:

Tony and Marja worked with the kids for over two hours. Thank you so much, Tony and Marja! The students really appreciated the time you spent with them.

After the snake team left we worked on our environmental PSAs.

PSA time led right into lunch...Baloney and mayo sandwiches! Yum!

After lunch, using a microscope, the students drew models of the different parts of a plant cell, talking about the differences between a plant cell and an animal cell.

They looked at plant cells under a microscope and drew sketches of what they saw.

Then the kids worked on a coral reef project. Using card board, paper, clay, rocks, beans, and pasta they created a model of a coral reef. Here is the metamorphosis from simple classroom supplies to coral reef model:

Pretty good, huh? This is a fringing reef. The other two groups did a coral atoll and a barrier reef.

Then as a preview to our Wastewater Treatment Plant field trip scheduled for Thursday, we did a waste water experiment where we gave the students sand, baking soda, vinegar, cotton, coffee filters, and paper towels. We gave them wastewater made from peanut butter, soy sauce, coffee, onions, leaves, beans, and another assorted fun things. The students had to return the pH of the water to 7 and take out all of the coloring until it was clear.

Here are some of the simple tools we gave the students to clean the wastewater:

We didn't tell the kids how to clean the water; they had to figure it out on thier own. They figured out that they should use a funnel to clean the water:

The day ended before we finished this experiment, so we put everything aside to finish the next day.

Finally, Mylene and Hope both wrote about Day 3 on their personal blogs. Keep up the blogging, girls!