GRADE LEVEL: K-6
SUBJECT AREAS: Science, Social Studies
OBJECTIVE: Students will examine the influence of soil compaction on plant and animal habitat and on water infiltration.
MATERIALS: Ice pick, tin cans, fencing materials, paper and pencil, camera and film
ACTIVITY:
1. Students will select two sites where students congregate and two other sites where student traffic is light or nonexistent. Mark off study plots, each 5'x5'(2m x 2m) on each site.
2. Students should work in small groups to count and classify the natural cover and litter (living and dead plants, dead leaves, insects) on each study area.
3. The students should measure the soil's compaction by recording the average depth to which an ice pick penetrates the soil when dropped several times from a height of 3 - 4 feet (1 -1.5 meters). For safety, the instructor should drop the pick.
4. The students will measure the water infiltration rate. This may be done by placing a No. 10 tin can, with both ends cut out, into the soil, filling it with a known quantity of water, and recording the length of time necessary for all of the water to penetrate into the soil.
5. Fence off one of each type of plot to serve as experimental areas. students should record with photographs or sketches the appearance of each of the four study sites on the date it is marked off and at various intervals as the fenced sites recover and grow back. As the sites recover, each group should remeasure infiltration, soil compaction, and the amount and nature of the latter on each of the four study areas.
6. Students will then compare the data
obtained from the two experimental and control plots and discuss
effects, relationships, minimization.
*Reprinted with permission,
American Forest Council, Copyright 1987, Project Learning Tree
Supplementary Guide K-6.