Ecosystems, The Water Cycle, and Terrariums

At Cogitania’s Saturday Botany workshop fourth graders learned about Ecosystems and the Water Cycle.

We watched a video about ecosystems which explained the roles producers, consumers, and decomposers play within an ecosystem. Following the video we discussed how ecosystems are impacted by human activities.

We watched another video about the water cycle. The students then drew the water cycle on the white board and labeled each process of the cycle. Again, we discussed how human activities impact the water cycle including: storage of water in reservoirs, ground water mining, irrigation, urbanization, combustion, and deforestation.

For the hands-on activity each student created an open air terrarium with lava rock , soil, succulents, and reindeer moss and learned about the care the terrariums need at home.

This was the last workshop of the 2016-2107 school year. The students had a fun year learning about Botany, Horticulture, Ecology, pollution, climate change, and biomes.

Instructor: Nathan Emerson