Swamped...Flood relief for Frosty
Animal Science- Grade:
- 2
- Teacher:
- Pamela Barrett
Our tortoise habitat gets flooded when it rains. Last year, another class tried to fix it by installing drains in its habitat, and the drains were tested successfully, but they didn’t work well this year during the monsoon! We don’t want our tortoise to drown! The first storm happened during our school open house, and a parent ran outside to grab our tortoise “Frosty”, who was already sitting in at least 4 inches of water within 10 minutes! We looked closely as to why the drains weren’t working, and we found that the rainwater tank was causing the flooding. After looking more closely at the habitat after a few monsoon storms, we saw that the rainwater tank was splashing water backwards into Frosty’s habitat, and the water was moving so fast that the drainage couldn’t handle it. The drain covers would get loose and float away from the drain pipes, and rocks would float into the pipes and block more water from escaping out of the enclosed area. We wanted to come up with ways to move the water away from the habitat
Fantastic job on this project! You found a real problem and created a thoughtful solution to help keep the tortoise habitat safe and dry. I was impressed by how you observed the flooding, built models, tested different designs, and compared your results. Your project showed great creativity, teamwork, and engineering skills. You also did a wonderful job thinking about what could happen next and how to make your design even better. Keep up the amazing work solving real-world problems!
Nice experiment! I am happy to see that you could use the scientific method to determine how to help improve Frosty’s habitat!
Wowee! What a great project! Frosty is lucky to have such caring and thoughtful students as his neighbors and caretakers. You observed a problem, investigated its source, then engineered models to test the solution. Graet job!