NEW PALESTINE — She bent over next to the table, getting her eyes as close as she could to the tube filled with water and other materials — she was trying to see the water-filtration experiment up close.
Zion Lutheran School fifth-grader Paige Taylor was fascinated watching the water try to trickle through the layers of dirt, sand, rocks and mud at the Water’s Worst Enemy station.
It was one of the many displays set up at the school during the Our Water, Our World presentation. The learning opportunity was hosted by Dani’s Dreams Outdoor Education Center and the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.
Officials with Dani’s Dreams and the children’s museum set up eight learning stations for patrons to visit in the school’s gym recently. Visitors were able to learn more about water at the Go With the Flow section. That’s where they saw the different stages of the water cycle and why each is important.
“It’s all very interesting,” Zion fifth-grader Brianne Randall said. “Water can help people, and we can get it so it can be cleaner and better.”
Donna Griffin, the founder of Dani’s Dreams, helped set up the night at the museum event. She went through the museum’s family outreach program and helped select the topic designed to bring learning opportunities to schools.
Andrew Cohee, museum family and neighborhood program coordinator, said the program brings parts of the children’s museum to the other communities. For a cost of $250 or $400 based on expected attendees, school officials said it was a great educational opportunity.
Brenda Kreutz, a second-grade teacher at Zion, worked the Water’s Worst Enemy station. She said the students and parents seemed to enjoy the chance to learn how important water really is.
“I like a night like this because a lot of different ages come in and get educated on a general topic and they all get something different from it,” she said.
Kreutz particularly liked the hands-on opportunity the event presented, giving children the chance to do some water experiments.
The Showerhead Showdown station gave everyone a chance to explore the devices in their homes to help save water. Children had the chance to use construction toys, along with their imaginations, to create their own water-saving devices.
The children had an opportunity to create a bracelet made of beads representing different parts of the water cycle.
“The clear bead is evaporation, the yellow is the sun, the white is the condensation, the blue is the rain and the green is the collection aspect of nature,” Dani’s Dreams official Brook Korb said.
This was the fifth year the school has hosted an environmental education program to promote family learning.
