Last Saturday, February 10th, Clarke County School District held their Elementary Young Scientist Fair at Alps Elementary School. This was a day full of science competitions, hands-on science activities, demonstrations, and presentations for K-5 CCSD students and their families.
EcoReach designed and hosted its own booth at the fair, which was all about macroinvertebrates! If you haven’t noticed, we love our macroinverts. We had several preserved freshwater macroinvertebrates at our booth, including immature stoneflies, mayflies, and caddisflies, which were all collected in GA.
The kids, and adults, were able to use handheld magnifying glasses to observe the critters up close. Our volunteers told the students all about the importance of the macroinvertebrates in freshwater systems, as well as fun facts about their life cycles, ways to avoid predators, and how to locate them in Athens! In addition to the macroinvertebrates, we also had a large poster detailing all about EcoReach’s mission and membership, as well as Ecology jobs and careers.
The kids (and even the teachers and parents!) seemed to really enjoy getting up close and personal with the stream macroinvertebrates, examining them intently with the magnifying glasses. EcoReach volunteer Samantha’s favorite part was telling the kids about the life cycles of the macroinverts. “When I told them about how many of these critters would grow wings and fly away from the stream when they became adults the kids’ eyes would widen, and one of them stepped back slightly and exclaimed, ‘I’m glad they’re not that old right now!’ Overall, it was a fun time!”
