The Garden City Telegram
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Liquid assets
Published 4/29/2008 in News : Area coverage
By EMILY BEHLMANN
ebehlmann@gctelegram.com
Strong enough to power a train, yet fragile enough that a hole in the lining of a landfill can harm it, water was the topic of discussion Monday for area fifth- and sixth-graders.
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Students from Finney, Kearny and Gray counties learned about water in its many forms on the opening day of the eighth annual Ark River Water Festival at Bernadine Sitts Intermediate Center in Garden City. The event continues today at Charles O. Stones Intermediate Center.
Jenny Koch, water quality coordinator with the Finney County Conservation District, said organizers were trying to convey a message of conservation, and to emphasize that Kansas has quality resources that need preserving.
She said the topic is especially important with recent concern about depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer, which lies beneath western Kansas and parts of South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas. But not all sessions focused directly on the aquifer, with presenters discussing topics ranging from the water cycle to methods of water treatment.
Koch said festival planners try to teach those lessons in interactive ways that differ from students' normal classroom activities.
Workshops like Kitchen Chemistry and Make Your Own Aquifer, for instance, gave participants hands-on experience related to the make-up and sources of water, and they could test their knowledge in sessions like Water Wheel of Fortune and Computer Water Quiz.
Classes got to make their own model landfills in Gooey Garbage, facilitated, in part, by Mark Goudy of the Farm Service Agency in Lakin.
Goudy said the project was intended to show students how landfills can affect groundwater. Participants filled their plastic-lined "landfills" with garbage, then poked holes in the lining, and the clean water below became polluted.
He said he was encouraging students at the festival to recycle and compost their waste as much as possible, and to avoid throwing away items like batteries and oil products, which could be harmful if they end up in landfills.
Kari Blattner, a fifth-grader at Cimarron Elementary School, said the presentation gave her an idea of how pollution can affect humans and animals.
Water also can have an effect on the shape of the land, according to Amanda Shaw, district conservationist with Natural Resources Conservation Service.
In her session, Rain Simulator, Shaw demonstrated how the flow of water can cause erosion of land. By leaving crop residue on the land or planting permanent covers, like grass, people can help prevent erosion, she told students.
With presentations by Ron Tibbetts, also known as the Scienceman'iac, students got an idea of some ways people use water.
Tibbetts, of Wichita, used water in its gaseous form, steam, to power a toy train. The festival is run by volunteers and funded by grants from Cargill, Western Kansas Community Foundation and Midwest Energy Inc.
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