We found that sand has the largest particles and clay has the smallest ones. We had soil races, where we put each soil into a separate column and then we poured water in to see how quickly the water ran through. Water ran through sand the fastest and through clay the slowest.
 |
| Measuring the clay |
 |
| Getting ready to fill a column with clay |
 |
| Ready to pour the water in each column |
 |
| Watching to see which soil water runs through the fastest |
Then it was time to learn how humus is made. We took apart rotting logs to find out what was making them decompose. Hint: water does not make it break down! That is done by small critters and plants. We found ants, termites, beetles, spiders, and more who were living in and eating the logs. We caught them and photographed them, then used the pictures to try to identify them. Who knew that there could be so much life in a seemingly lifeless log?
Trying to identify the creatures we had found was fun and challenging!
We even tried to mimic Mother Nature as we shook small stones in a bottle with water. After hundreds of shakes, we were able to see grains of sand. We even had much smaller particles, which turned out to be clay. This gave new meaning to the phrase, "Shake it up, baby!"
