Sarah Beck-Jenkins' Winning Blog

Congratulation to Sarah Beck-Jenkins in P7B who wrote a fantastic blog about our Water of Leith trip. Here is Sarah's blog below:

We arrived at the Water of Leith Visitor Centre at 9.45 on Thursday morning. First of all we hung our coats and bags up and sat down in the work room. Ruth, our team leader, gave us an introduction about the Water of Leith. First of all she told us that the source was in the Pentland Hills and that its mouth is at the firth of forth where it leads into the sea.

After a quick introduction we walked to the river. That day the river was very fast flowing and deep because of the rain the day before. Our first activity was to measure the depth of the water. Anna and I estimated that the water would be 85cm deep. However, we were quite far off as its actual depth was 47cm. Then Ruth measured the depth of the water next to the weir and we estimated a depth of 27cm but it was only 19cm.

Next, we moved further on where was saw a large green pipe going across the river. Anna and I suggested that it was for sewage in the old days and it turns out we were right! Apparently people used to put their toilet water into the river and the green pipe would suck it all up and carry it to the drains.

Despite having to walk for a while, we were happy to arrive at an opening of the river where we performed an experiment on how fast the water was flowing that day. We tested it on how long it took an orange to travel 15 metres along the river. We tested it three times and the fastest time was 14.24 seconds (Robert was in charge of the stopwatch). I found this activity so much fun.

Next, we all got to go pond dipping which I think everyone really enjoyed. When we got down to the river we were all given a net so that we could try to catch some river bugs and hopefully some fish. I really enjoy river dipping because I do it a lot with my dog. Surprisingly, I caught a bull head fish which gave me a fright because it started to shake in my net but I was really happy that I'd caught it!

Unfortunately, we had to put it back because it was too big to take back to the centre. However, Miss Gaffney took a picture of it (I called it Sienna) and by then it was lunch time so we all walked back to the centre.

After our lunch we followed Ruth into the exhibition centre, I thought it was amazing. As soon as everybody was in the room sitting down on the floor, we looked at the creatures we had found from pond dipping. Some of the creatures we found were: Mayflies, leaches, and a bull head fish. Ruth put them under a microscope so we could see them better. One of the facts Ruth told us is that the Mayflies live under water for 2-3 years and then they come out of the river and turn into flies. When they are flies, the have a life-span of an hour, in which they have to mate and lay their eggs, but then they die.

While we were looking at them we got to draw a picture of our favourite creature. Next, we got to play with the water activity games, my favourites were the water wall and the water gates. We also got to watch a video about the water of Leith in our groups. Finally, we headed back to school after our exciting day.