Double Vision

Post by Timithie Norman, Marketing and Communications Manager at Kidspace Children's Museum

We just got a few new plastic trees for use in the Kidspace Erosion table, and I walked into the gallery with the trees intent on watching for a few minutes how the kids interacted with them and to see if they would work in the exhibit.

My initial thought was: they won't work! The bases are too wide! The water spray from the fountain will not be powerful enough to wash them down! But I tossed them in, the kids grabbed them right away, and I watched.

And for the first time, I saw a real example of what the exhibit is trying to teach. See, like most of the kids who try it out, I always thought the fun was to just watch things get washed down the channels to the basin below. Who cares about erosion, this water spray just wiped out my pile of faux earth! But with the new tree, I saw something else: the tree WAS too heavy to be washed away, and so the faux earth piled up behind it, safe from the water spraying all around. That's what happens in real life!

Trees and other plants help anchor soil and prevent it from being swept away in floods and storms.

The best part? The kids noticed the effect, too. A real life learning moment. :)