Are you running out of easy, creative ideas to entertain the family? Missouri River Relief and Show-Me Stormwater are here to help. We would like to invite your family to participate in The Great Missouri River Scavenger Hunt! We have teamed up to create an adventure challenge just for you.
Goal: to help connect you to your local watershed, have fun in a creek, learn about food webs and how animals are dependent on healthy creeks, and last but not least find ways to help make your creek a better habitat for all animals.
Audience: 2nd-5th Grade
Location: If you’re not able to go to a creek, many of these tasks can be done with a computer that has internet. Alternately, if you do not have the internet, many of the tasks can be enjoyed outside.
Approximate time needed for each part of the adventure:
Materials: a computer or tablet with the internet, permission to use social media, transportation to a creek (could be your legs or a bicycle), camera, litter bag, snacks, water, paper, and something to draw with.
Concepts covered with parental guidance include pollination (2-3rd grade), watersheds (3-4th grade), and food webs (5th grade).
Safety: Please follow CDC guidance on personal hygiene when going outside and observe CDC’s minimum recommended physical distance of 6 feet from other persons at all times. Do not use parks or trails if you are exhibiting symptoms.
Find your watershed. Discovering your watershed is like mapping where rain travels, like a road map for raindrops. Find what creek “roads” a raindrop follows in your Boone County neighborhood on its way to the Missouri River by going to this website. If you live outside of Boone County, you can still participate! Try finding your watershed at the websites listed below and then skip part B and C:
- Watersheds of the Kansas City Region
- Watershed Inventory of Missouri
- Missouri’s Watersheds
Now that you know your watershed creek, you can learn more about the animals in your neighborhood that need clean water. You can also make your watershed safer for animals.
Next step: Find a public area along your creek to visit. If you live in Columbia, MO use page 5 of this map to help you find your creek. When you get to your creek, take a picture! Post your picture with the name of your creek on social media. Use #MoRiverScavengerHunt
Find a flower blooming. Take a picture and try to identify it when you get home.
Find an insect pollinating a flower.
Find something that does not belong in nature and could harm critters. Hint: this is why you brought your litter bag!
Think of (or observe) a critter that needs clean water: a bird, mammal (squirrel), reptile (snake) or amphibian (frog).
Find some paper and draw your critter!
Now list or draw 3 things that your critter eats and 3 things that like to eat your critter. Post your drawing and use #MoRiverScavengerHunt
Find Missouri River Relief on the web. How many tons of trash from the Missouri River have these heroes picked up since they began in 2001. Wow, that’s a lot of trash!
