W: Wet #AtoZChallenge

I spent Tuesday evening soaking wet for soccer practice in the rain. I didn't mind all that much as it was not cold. The worst part was the kids complaining! I loved soccer practice in the rain when I was younger. I guess I wasn't 5 or 6 at the time, though.

I ended up spending most of Wednesday wet too. I had signed Ken up to do a field trip with Frances' middle school science class. He ended up having things come up at work, so I covered for him. I was honestly not looking forward to a wet field trip with 6th graders. Especially because the instructions said to "dress to get wet to your knees." Plus it was still raining intermittently.

I ended up having a really good time and being very impressed with how much these students knew about environmental issues and our local ecology.

We rode the bus south of town to a community golf course that is located right next to the North River. Once there, we had four different stations to cycle through: assessing the chemical composition of the water, collecting animal and insect species from the water, comparing local rural, urban, and suburban areas in terms of land forms and runoff impact, and measure the width, depth, and flow of the river.

Two of those stations required the kids to get in the water. They were just as excited about that prospect as you might imagine, with a good number of them "accidentally" falling in; Frances among them! I chose to skip the full immersion station and just help with collecting creatures and the other two "dry" stations.

It was nice to spend the day with Frances and see how she's learning. She really enjoyed the field trip, as science is something she loves to learn about. In the end, I didn't get as wet as I thought I might, and I enjoyed myself (and learned something) too.