ingridscience

Indigenous people that live here, and have done for thousands of years, have a respectful relationship with the animals they catch for food, including thanking an animal for giving their life to feed people.

Acknowledge that we are on Indigenous land.
In Vancouver, we live, work and play on the unceded land of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.

Choose a selection of the activities.

Assemble the deer skeleton. Talk about how it may have died. Its body is used by, and help sustains, many other living things: animals gnaw the meat from the bones, bacteria and fungi decompose the meat and bones to valuable nutrients which leech into the soil, and are then used by plants to grow.
Humans can use many parts of an animal that they kill, and Pacific Northwest Indigenous groups make it a point to thank the animal for its life and to use every part of its body. Hooves and bones used to make tools, knife handles, spoons, arrowheads and fish hooks. Sinews (tendons/ligaments) for bow strings, fishing lines, thread.

We are eating sustainably when we only eat what we need, and get food in a way that protects ecosystem diversity. Then we leave healthy environments and food sources for the generations after us.
We will model two Coast Salish harvesting methods, both sustainable.
Set up stations of two sustainable food harvesting methods:
Clam baskets - harvesting by hand means that the clam beds are not overused
Fish traps - once enough fish for eating are caught, the remaining ones can be released

Look at the seasonal round poster (if available).
Show the basket weaving and clam fishing in the Winter. Show pics of real clam baskets.
In the Summer, fish are plentiful and the sockeye salmon are running. Fish are dried and smoked to eat in the winter.
In the Fall, large game such as deer are caught (for meat and for making leather goods among many other uses.

Show a version of the Pin and ring game made from animal bones.
Then students can try their own games made from recycled materials (cardboard tubes and chopsticks).

Carbon cycles through living things, the atmosphere, the oceans, the Earth and rocks:
Carbon moves between the air and animals/plants in Fast carbon cycles (respiration, photosynthesis and fermentation).
Carbon moves between the air and ocean water in a Fast carbon cycle.
Carbon moves into animal shells and rocks, and through the rock cycle in Slow carbon cycles.
Carbon is returned to the atmosphere through weathering in a Slow carbon cycle.
Carbon is returned to the atmosphere in large amounts via outgassing of volcanoes.

Humans are putting carbon into the atmosphere at a fast rate by burning fossil fuels.
Sometimes rocks form from plants and animals to make fossil fuels - coal, oil and natural gas.
We burn fossil fuels for energy.
Demonstrate burning fossil fuels using a candle (wax is a petroleum product).
Burning fossil fuels puts carbon dioxide into the air very fast, faster than it can cycle back into living things and rocks.
We need to stop burning fossil fuels for energy and use renewable sources only.

Wind energy is renewable.
Students make a device that turns in the wind, and learn about the key parts of a wind turbine (a part that spins and blades to catch the wind).
Wind turbines are hooked to a generator, to make electricity.
Demonstrate a wind turbine.
Wind turbine videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQpbTTGe_gk (2.5 mins)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy9nj94xvKA (5 mins)

As part of the rock cycle, rocks come to the surface, where they are exposed to the weather and other agents which break them into smaller pieces. This breaking up is called 'weathering'.

Weathering happens in many ways:
The sun heats rocks up and makes them crack. Water freezes inside cracks and makes them wider. Rain and wind wear little bits off. Living things grow in rocks and break them up. Rocks bump into each other which breaks them and wears them down.

Set up the rock tumbler with a variety of hard and soft rocks inside, to show what happens when rocks bump together.

While the rocks are tumbling (for about an hour), go on a weathering scavenger hunt.

Check inside the tumbler after about an hour, to find that the soft rocks have already worn away or broken up a bit.
Leave the tumbler for another week.
The soft (sedimentary) rocks might disappear completely, becoming mud, while the hard (igneous and metamorphic) rocks are only smoothed a little at the edges.
(Make sure that the tumbler turns all the while - as some of the rocks become mud, the tumbler might stop turning, and need a little more water adding.)
The rock tumbler mimics rocks colliding into each other, and are weathered into smaller, rounder rocks, and sand.

Weathering as part of the carbon cycle:
Weathering can either remove or add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
If organic matter in rock is exposed to the air, their carbon is converted to carbon dioxide, which becomes part of the atmospheric CO2.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide can chemically break down rocks and then becomes trapped in rock sediment.

The CO2 in the ocean becomes part of the shells of ocean animals, and is also made into rock.
Show the chemistry of carbonate precipitation into calcium carbonate.

Calcium carbonate, from dead shelled animals or from chemical precipitation, is the starting point for many 'carbonate' rocks, as they enter the rock cycle.
If available, show a rock that is made up of shells (e.g. limestone), or show images from a "limestone shells" google search.
These shells from dead animals that drop to the ocean floor are buried in layers and layers until they are compressed into sedimentary rock. (If available show sedimentary rock that is clearly layers of shells.)

The carbonate chemistry remains the same as rocks move from sedimentary to metamorphic to igneous rock. The mineral is the same.
Other rock families have their own mineral chemistry.
Test for carbonate rocks, to identify which rocks of a collection are carbonate rocks.

Carbon in the air cycles with living things (see lesson on carbon exchange between living things and the air).
Carbon dioxide in the air also cycles into water and our oceans.
These are both fast carbon cycles.

Activity showing how CO2 dissolves in water to make it more acidic.

Optionally, Model the chemistry of CO2 combining with water to make carbonic acid (first part of carbonate precipitation activity).

Test other kinds of water (e.g. fish tank, pond, ocean) to see how acidic they are.
(Note: they will not necessarily get their acidity from dissolved carbon dioxide, but maybe from other water chemistry.)