Importance of Wetlands and Forests
- Explain the importance of vegetation cover in water retention, filtering precipitated or runoff water, and in preventing soil erosion.
- Prepare the experiment:
- Cut one side of the large bottles.
- In the first bottle, put soil seeded with plants and wait for them to grow before you start the experiment. Plant cover should be fairly dense.
- Before the start of the experiment place soil alone in the second bottle and soil covered with dead leaves in the third bottle.
- Place all three bottles next to each other on a desk and, below each bottle opening, place one small cup that will collect the water drained from bottles.
- Pour water (imitating the rain event) across each bottle and wait until the small cups below are filled.
- Observe the appearance of the water that passed through each of the bottles.
- From which bottle is the water cleaner and why?
- What does this experiment tell us about purification?
- Take the plants with roots and soil out of the bottle and observe:
- The vegetation and soil that they hold together act as a sponge and hold water in the soil and in the plant itself.
References:
Experiment and photo adapted from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im4HVXMGI68
