Columbia Springs
Eco Explorers Extension MaterialsTons of activities that you can do with your students before or after the field trip to enhance and extend learning.
How do humans impact the natural world? How do communities use science to better understand our impacts and keep our ecosystems healthy?
Eco Explorers
Before your visit
Use these activities to help students prepare for their fifth grade field trip to Columbia Springs!
Welcome to Columbia Springs (Video)
An introduction to Columbia Springs, who we are and what we do.
Have you ever heard of Columbia Springs? What makes us unique? How do we use science every day? Follow along with one of our favorite science inquiry activities, “I notice, I wonder, it remids me of…”.
Vocabulary List
Review some of the key vocabulary used on the field trip before you arrive. Listed in English, Spanish and Russian.
Macroinvertebrate Monitoring
The Vancouver Trout Hatchery sits in the middle of our 100 acre natural area. Learn how fish rearing uses local spring water and why we need to do scientific macroinvertebrate monitoring to ensure that we aren’t polluting the water in the process. Complete a macroinvertebrate monitoring project on your own or with a partner and share what you learned!
Part 1: Spring Water at the Hatchery (Video)
How does the hatchery capture natural spring water to raise thousands of fish every year?
Take a behind the scenes tour of our hatchery, and learn about the creative ways we’ve designed solutions to capture, store and use cool, clean spring water to raise trout and salmon.
Follow along with this video guide, which includes visuals, vocabulary, and questions!
Part 2: Water Quality Monitoring (Video)
Why do we look at the bugs in the water to make sure the water is healthy?
We use lots of water to raise fish, but how do we know that we aren’t having a negative impact on that water? Come join us down at the wetland to take a look at how underwater bugs help us learn about the health of our wetland stream.
Follow along with this video guide, which includes visuals, vocabulary and questions!
Part 3: Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Sampling (Activity)
It’s your turn! Complete this activity to see for yourself how scientists use aquatic macroinvertebrates to determine water quality.
Soil Your Undies! An Exploration of Soil Health
What is soil? How do we know if it’s healthy? Explore what makes healthy soil through a simple, and hilarious, soil test at school or at home!
Soil Your Undies! (Video)
What can a pair of cotton undies tell us about soil health?
Join Columbia Springs Educator, Shelly, in this fun and engaging video to learn about what makes healthy soil, the role of decomposers in soil health and how to do your own scientific investigation to find out if your soil is healthy!
Soil Your Undies Planting Guide
Click here for your copy of the planting field guide which includes the site survey.
Science in Progress Sign
Click here for an example of a sign that you can print and laminate to mark where you’ve planted your undies!
Stream Restoration Design Challenge
Put on your engineering hat and work with a small group or partner to design a solution to a degraded salmon stream.
Part 1: Introducing the Stream Restoration Design Challenge (video)
This video will introduce you to salmon, what they need in order to survive and the challenges they face.
Salmon are amazing animals, but they’re in trouble! Use this worksheet to consider and discuss what you learned from the video.
Part 2: Your Turn! Stream Restoration Design Challenge (video)
The world is yours for the making! Salmon are amazing animals, but they’re in trouble! Can you help them by designing a restoration plan? Experience the real life constraints that engineers face, while using your minecraft skills to design a solution.
Follow along with this powerpoint video viewing guide! And here’s a link to the powerpoint without video narration, if you’d like to present it on your own.
Part 3: Your Design Materials (Activity)
Columbia Springs Species Cards
Use these cards to build knowledge and excitement around some of the plants and animals that you might see at Columbia Springs.
Species Cards
(Printable)
Producers, consumers and decomposers, oh my! This resource set includes over 40 common species of Columbia Springs organized by category and including information about where they are in the food web, and fun facts! Click here for the PDF of this printable teaching tool with unlimited possibilities!
Extra Resources:
Species Cards
Lessons and Activities
Check out these lesson plans using the species cards:
- Energy in Ecosystems – (40-60min) – Learn how energy moves through ecosystems by studying food chains and food webs in this complete NGSS aligned lesson.
- Classic Games- (5-15min) – Charades, Pictionary and more adapted for use with species cards
- I Am What I Eat- (10-20min) – Reinforce concepts of producer, consumer and decomposer.
Get Moving!
Species Cards Games
Try one of these activities with the species cards to get your students moving!
- Who am I? (10min) – Quick game to get students moving.
- Food Chain Human Puzzle (10-15min) – Great for kinesthetic learners.
- Decomposer Tag – (2omin) – Running game to learn about the importance of decomposers.
- Each One, Teach One – (20-30min) – Let students lead as they introduce each other to different species.
Thank you for checking out our pre and post activity resource page! This is a new resource so please let us know if any of the links did not work and let us know your ideas for improvement!