Water

Today, we had a guest speaker, Ms. Emily from Mille Lacs County Water. She spoke to Mr. Greninger and Ms. Leom's classes after lunch.

We learned about where we get water from:
* surface reservoirs (lakes, ponds, streams, etc.) - St. Paul and St. Cloud get their water from surface reservoirs
* underground or groundwater - Milaca gets water from underground

She told us about pollution:
- fertilizers
- algae
- other (we don't always know it is there)

Infiltration - when pollution can enter our water sources

Then she did some experiments. Student volunteers looked, smelled and tasted her examples. The "pollution" wasn't harmful ... and only small samples were shared ... There was a recorder for each class to compare the look, the smell, and the taste.

After our experiments, we learned:
Sample 1 - salt water
Sample 2 - drinkable water
Sample 3 - added vanilla
Sample 4 - food coloring
Sample 5 - coffee creamer
Sample 6 - vinegar

What we learned about water pollution:
- it can look like good water, but can still have a containament
- some water is very good to drink and some might not be
- it looks like something and might be something else
- sometimes it is safe to drink and it looks like it is not
- it is gross
- water in a water tower comes from ground water

What can we do to prevent pollution:
- don't litter so much, use a garbage can
- use clean water to grow plants
- avoid overusing fertilizer