Mystery Life Bags

Source: 

Second Nature - Environmental Studies Pack (RSPB & SNH) available from the RSPB

Time

10 - 20 minutes

You will need

For each group of 4-6 children, you will need

• A dark cloth bag or small cardboard box
• A  small tub containing soil
• A small tub containing water

Did you know?

• Our bodies are about 80% water and about 70% of the Earth's surface is covered in water.
• Although Scotland has a lot of rain and large areas of freshwater,  most of the world's water (97%) is salt water.

Before the activity

Place a tub of soil and a tub of water inside each cloth bag or box. If you have time beforehand, hide the bags in a chosen area and ask the children to find the bags and bring them to you (without looking inside!).

The activity

Hand out the mystery bags and explain that they will hold 4 key ingredients for life (water, air, soil and light). Ask them to open them slowly and carefully, (away from the other groups) and to discuss within their own groups what the 4 ingredients are. Move around the groups giving help or clues if necessary. Bring everyone back together, perhaps sitting down beside a burn or under some trees. Ask each group in turn for a key ingredient and follow with a discussion about how plants and animals (including us) depend on these 4 essentials.

Suggested Follow up

Ask the children to design a series of fair tests which can prove or disprove that water, air, soil and light are essential for a chosen life form (seeds or plants).

Divide the class into 4 groups: water, air, soil and light. Each group brainstorms causes and effects of pollution or man-made disturbance on their essential ingredient for life, and could choose one or more topics to follow up with further research. A class wall display, combining results, would then give an overview of many of the key environmental issues.

Additional Information

Most of the world's fresh water is either under the ground (30.1%) or bound up as ice in glaciers and ice caps, (68.7%). Only a tiny proportion, 0.3% is made up of surface water in the rivers, lakes and swamps of the world. 

Soil is made up of minerals and organic matter. The minerals come from rocks which have been broken down by weathering processes (wind, rain, high and freezing temperatures, river and glacier movement). The organic part of the soil is made up of  decayed plants and micro-organisms. 

The Sun is a star, a star which is close to us compared to other stars, yet still 93 million miles away (150 million kilometres). Amazingly it only takes about 8 minutes for light from the Sun to reach us (if you could travel to the Sun in a car at 60 miles per hour it would take you 176 years to get there). 

The air around us is a mixture of different gases; mostly nitrogen (78.09%) and oxygen (20.95%).Other gases present include argon, carbon dioxide (0.03%) and water vapour. The layers of gases around the Earth, our atmosphere, extend about 500 miles above the Earth's surface. However the Troposphere, the first layer extending only 10 miles above the surface of the Earth, contains our weather systems.

Curriculum Links

• Science - main
• Health & well being - main
• Religious & moral education - associated

Age Range

2, 3