Meet the Tree

Meet The Tree

-(Nature Game)-

When we walk through a forest, or maybe a garden we see many trees around us. Sometimes they look very different one to another, and sometimes we didn't.

To make children and adult know better about tree characteristic, we can do this game. It's a fun game, you can make contest between 2 teams.

Needs
Handkerchief

Try to do this game in a place where there are many trees. First pick one volunteer. Use the handkerchief to make sure the kid can't see anything. And then you guide the kid - take his/her hand and walk, wandering all around the place for about 1 to 2 minutes to make the kid lost orientation.

Don't forget, all other kids have to keep quiet, because this can make first step failed.

And then pick one tree. Make sure he/she feel the root, the surface of the tree skin, and how big is the tree. Then after 1 to 2 minutes, we will be back to the group, oh course not directly walk to the group because then it will be easy for him/her to guess.

As you already know, after the kid came back to the group and open his/her eyes, he/she must guess corectly which tree he/she meet. They must guess only 1 time without came back to the tree. But after the answer, they can check the tree directly to make sure they have the right answer.

For a larger group you can pick up more than 1 volunteer, holding hands together while walking.

A Food Song of Life

A Food Song For Life
-(Nature Game)-

To make sure the children or adults understand about food chain - that everything in our environment has relation, we can play "A Food Song of Life". It's a simple game that show children how the nature work in a simple food chain.

Needs
A large group of children

When we play this game, we divide number of children into about 50% plants (like grass), 25% low level animal (like cricket), 12% high level animal (like frog), 6% top predator (like snake). The rest of them can play role as the disease.


Every children has to try to adopt the animal sound they played (like frog, they may learn how to sound like a frog). So there's a little practical activity before we go to the next step. For a plant, they don't need to speak. They can imitate the grass move when the wind blow.

After practice, children then gathering randomly in a big circle.

Everybody must know that there's relationship between grass-cricket-frog-snake in the food chain. Then in circle we played a kid song, but in animal sound - example; snake with hishhhh style :) . So it will be an animal mumble song.The rule is when the teachers said "STOP" everybody (except grass) has to grab the hand of a 2 low level creatures below them. Like snakes, they have to catch 2 frog. The frog, they have to catch 2 crickets. and so on. Every player who can't fulfill this rule is being released from the game.

I forget to tell, that the kid who played disease also eliminate every person they grab, no matter what they are.

Repeat the game and after a couple minutes the game will be over (tips for grown up activity: you can make it more complicated by changing the percentage of the creatures, number of food they consume, or even add a growth number so there's some reproduction each session).

Oxygen Product of My Own

Oxygen Product of My Own
-(Nature Experiment)-

When we stand below a big tree in the day, we feel fresh. It is because the tree produce a lot of oxyigen we need to breathe. It also protect us from direct sunlight, so we can sit for a rest when it is to hot to walk in open area.

How much oxygen is produced by a plant? We can guess a number of it, but without makin an experiment and without a data, it seems hard to do that count. Many people ignore about forest and plants because they do not see or feel the functions. When we see clearly what really happened, and how it can benefit us, I believe that we will think more serious to save the planet :) That is our purpose with this experiment.

Needs
A kind of sinking water plant
A transparent drinking glass or a small aquarium
Rubber and plastic wrap

Pick a water plant that sink in the water, for example hydrilla, water grass, or something else. If you find trouble, you can buy it in the fish / pet shop. In my country there is a special market that sell many things related with water life, including fishes, plants, the food, aquarium and more. Can you found a kind of of market in your country?

Then fill ¾ part of the glass with water. Put the plant in the glass and seal the glass with plastic wrap and rubber, so the air can not escape freely. After that, bring the glass and put it in the place exposed by direct sunlight.

Soon the plant will start doing photosynthetic activity and some oxygen bubbles will appear. After 5 to 10 minutes, open the plastic and let some kids inhale their “own made” oxygen. Ask them about their feeling (do not foget, asking about feelings also can make a kid familiar to express their thinking).

This is some of their answer :
Happy, I create my own oxygen
I feel funny, I never think that this plant producing oxygen
Happy, I want to create more oxygen with my plants
I wonder how much oxygen produced in my backyard?
I think I smell an oxygen…

For intermediate and advance, we can modify this experiment into:
- Making the water turbid by mix the water with food colour or other kind of dye (we can discuss about water pollution then, and how it related with the lost of oxygen productivity in water)
- Try to find the data in the internet about numbers of oxygen productivity / carbon absorption in a forest and carbon release by industry, then we can discuss how we need to make balance between this number.

Secret Seeds

Secret Seeds
-(Nature Experiment)-

It’s so interesting to see how the life begin from watching the seed grow up and become a plant. From a small seeds, children and adult learn about calmness while watching the seed grow up. We also learn about care discipline when we give them enough water and light that they need to photosynthesis activity.

Needs:
some “secret” seeds, potflower (a glass if you want see more clear), soil, label

To make more fun, give the children a seed that they do not know its name. It can be because they never seen the seed before (or maybe if they already know about the seed, try to find another from different place – local variety seed sometimes looks different). Later you can also try different culture method like cutting, leaf planting to know different part of plant that can be grown (intermediate experiment)

Give assignment to children and you can make a contest, which children or team will correctly guess the name of the plant that they grow. Before they found the name, they can create their own names (don't we remember that children love to name their own “pet”?) like : Tiny John, Rufus americana - this is if you want them to be familiar with binomial nomenclature things :).

Give presents for instance : handicraft from recycle product (cool isn’t it?) to first, second and other winner. We can also make other story to tell children about the habitat of the plant with photos, movies and etc if we want to make the happiness continue.

Goodluck for your experiment...