Rain catchers are often barrels or other water-tight containers which collect (and sometimes filter) rainwater as a means of practicing water conservation. Class activities involving rain catchers can be a good way to teach water conservation, measuring and graphing skills to fourth-graders. There are several activities to consider.
Painting Rain Barrels
Water-tight barrels suitable for use as rain catchers can be purchased from a variety of retailers and wholesalers and then decorated by the fourth-graders. Barrels could be decorated in ecological or environmental themes (such as displaying various ecosystems, the four seasons or types of flowers) or painted in the school's colors and with the school mascot.
Selling Rain Barrels
Alternatively, you could plan a class activity in which students (either as a class or as teams) decorate and sell rain barrels to parents. Such an activity could require students to put on presentations concerning the importance of water conservation and how owning rain barrels would help families meet their water conservation goals. This money could go to fund various school initiatives or specific educational class outings. In a similar project, one classroom in the Prairie Crossing Charter School in Grayslake, Illinois, managed to raise about $2,000 to help support a school-wide green initiative. (See akoeniger.edublogs.org.) Over two months, the class took orders for 10 rain barrels, which students designed themes for and painted, and pre-painted several more barrels which were then sold at a school-wide fundraising plant sale.
Water Scarcity Activity
Classrooms can use rain catchers to measure the school's precipitation and use this information to perform water scarcity comparisons: comparing how available (or not) water is in different countries. After compiling information on water availability (the average amount of rainfall) in different countries, ask students to help create and label a bar graph displaying how their school's rainfall compares to that of other areas. Since the majority of water used by people is derived from such precipitation (even groundwater is ultimately formed by precipitation that seeps through the soil), this activity can highlight how unevenly nature distributes resources and highlight the importance of water conservation. You may assign groups or individuals certain countries to consider and ask them to come up with a plan that might help their assigned area conserve or protect water resources.
Rain Graphing Activity
Students in fourth-grade classrooms may exercise their graphing skills by measuring rainfal l-- which would be collected by the rain catcher-- over a predetermined period of time and graphing the changes in the local weather patterns. This could be made into a class activity -- in which a large graph is kept in the classroom, to be added to on a daily or weekly basis by different students -- or a solo activity, in which the class records the measurements and then students make their own graphs at the end of the measuring period.
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