This aquifer is edible
<p>Jaelyn Young, 7, contemplates the size of the Rathdrum Aquifer during a class presented Thursday by the Panhandle Health District at Atlas Elementary. Environmental Health specialists used cereal, milk, ice cream, decorative sprinkles and juice to explain how the aquifer works as they helped children construct the different levels of the aquifer.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - How do you impress upon second-graders the importance of protecting our region's drinking water source?
Show them with ice cream.
Environmental specialists from Panhandle Health District built edible aquifers Thursday with children at Atlas Elementary School in Coeur d'Alene.
The lesson, aimed at teaching the students where their drinking water comes from, and what can happen to it if it's not protected, seems to have sunk in.
"When you spill something by the water, then when you get the water out of the ground, you could be drinking poison," said Lilian Krows, 7, as she sampled the edible aquifer she had just helped create.
Each student received a clear plastic cup with a layer of dry puffed wheat cereal representing rocks and gravel. The children watched and learned as PHD employees put the rest of the aquifer recipe together.
They poured some milk over each child's cereal to represent the water.
"Oh! It soaks in!" said student Connor Howell, as the metaphorical aquifer began to make sense to him.
The cereal was then topped with some chocolate ice cream "dirt," and a smattering of green, sugar sprinkles for grass.
PHD environmental program manager Dick Martindale asked the students if they knew how to access underground drinking water.
"You need a well," Martindale said, as he handed the children drinking straws. "That straw is your well."
PHD workers poured a few drops of concentrated cherry juice on top of the ice cream.
"This could be oil. It could be fertilizer. It could be anything you don't want in your drinking water," Martindale told the children. "Now, take a little sip."
When students stuck their straws in and sucked up some milk through the ice cream, they saw the dark red juice begin to filter down into the milk.
They soon saw the juice begin to make its way up the straw with the milk.
"This is why you don't want to dump things into the ground, because it will eventually come up through your drinking water," Martindale said.
Some of the children's questions reflected concern about the water resource.
After learning there are 10 trillion gallons of water in the Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer, Jaelyn Young, 7, asked, "Will we run out?"
"We're pretty lucky in this area, but we have to be careful," answered PHD worker Ellen Mueller.