Discovery Boxes
The Fin Bin Discovery Box (Grades 3-7)
This popular Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery box is also available at the North Central Washington Museum. This discovery box contains materials to assist educators in teaching about the aquatic world and specifically, about salmon. The bin includes an activity guide, water test kits, posters, fish models, videos, and fish specimen. The activities include:
To Be or Not To Be (a fish) - Students will name and explain the characteristics used to define fish and applyscientific criteria to evaluate whether an animal is a fish or not. - Eggs-actly! - Depending on the age group, students will learn the concept of an average family size through a demonstration, learn the average number of eggs a Chinook salmon lays, and experiment with various estimating techniques.
- Tag, You're It! - Students will be able to name, describe, compare, and evaluate customary fish marking methods.
- Eye of the Beholder- Students will become aware of and appreciate various attitudes towards salmon by comparing descriptions of salmon from scientific and cultural points of view and recognize several types of relationships people have with fish through further investigation and role playing.
- Scales and Tales - A series of fun/fact sheets illustrating some aspect of the life cycle of the Pacific salmon with information on one side and activity on the other.
- Fish in the Floodlights - Students can participate in short dramas about salmon.
Wolf Discovery Box (Grades K-12)
The materials in the box provides an excellent way for students to learn about these mammals that live in our region. Materials include: wolf and coyote hides, skulls, tracks and scat. Box also contains a cassette of wolf howls, videos, reference books and a curriculum guide.
Bear Discovery Box (Grades K-12)
Grab your students' attention with this box featuring grizzly and black bear pelts, skulls, tracks, claws, videos, posters, cub puppet, and silhouettes to aid in species identification. The teacher's guide contains activities like "build-a-bear felt board" and tips for bear-safe camping. Popular with scouting groups in our area.
Swauk Forest Discovery Box (Grades 7-12)
Designed to be used in conjunction with a Wenatchee National Forest interpretive trail. This box includes: a curriculum guide, a 3-part narrated slide show, and materials to do a series of hands-on activities about disease, fire, forest succession and habitats of Washington Comes with backpacks filled with field equipment and activities to do on the trail.
Fire Discovery Box (Grades 4-12)
This box focuses upon the role of fire in our forest ecosystem. It includes videos, a curriculum with activities, samples of fire-scarred tree wedges and books. This is an excellent way to learn how fire plays a vital and beneficial role in our forests.
Plant Discovery Box (Grades 3-12)
Teach students about the rich plant life of the eastside Cascades. Based around the new Celebrating Wildflowers curriculum, the box contains curriculum, posters, field guides, models, a PBS video series with a teacher guide, books about plants, hands-on activities & a slide show, Plants for People, with lessons to do pre- and post-viewing.
Mrs. Johnson Water History Box (Grades 3-12)
This resource box enables educators to teach about water history through the eyes of a real pioneer woman, Mrs. Johnson. The kit includes Mrs. Johnson's costume, script, and artifacts including a divining rod, clothes wringer, and a Sears catalogue.
The Enviroscape Model (Grades 3-12)
This three dimensional model simulates a typical populated watershed. It is designed to teach students how we all can be part of the solution rather than part of the problem of environmental degradation. Concepts included in this model are land management practices as they relate to point and non- point source pollution and water runoff.
The Groundwater Model (Grades 3-12)
This interactive model depicts the way water moves underground through different soil particles. Students create pollution scenarios and track how they relate and affect, drinking water.
