Saturday, January 12, 2008

Cattail Investigation

We had loads of fun today learning about the amazing
Giver of the Wetlands - the Cattail.

Cattails provide shelter and food for wetland creatures such a ducks, geese, red-winged black birds, and muskrats. Many people have used cattails in many ways for hundreds of years. Cattails can be used for making pillows, hats, diapers, mattresses, rugs, baskets, and clothing just to name a few. Many parts of the cattail are edible including the cattail flower at the top!
Today we gave a program out in the educational yurt, and folks made boats out of their cattails, boy did they float great! One boat floated as many as 58 pennies!
Here is a picture of some of the fantastic boats that were created.