The Story: Lilu's big Vacation Experience
Overview
How you can use the story
The experiments featured in the teaching material "Save our nature – Let’s explore together" are accompanied by stories of Lilu’s and Alina's adventures.
A longer introductory story introduces the students to the whole of the material. Shorter stories lead to the individual topics and experiments.
You can introduce the topics and experiments in different ways to involve various groups of students in your class. For example, you can tell the story of Lilu and Alina through reading, drawing or drama. This can help to reach the whole class.
Lilu's big vacation experience
Lilu had been looking forward to his vacation for a long time. Together with his friend Alina, he got to travel to his favorite island again. It had been many years since he was last there. He could still remember everything so well: the shady trees on the mountains, the ancient castle with its many towers and battlements. He was determined to show his friend all of this.
A week later, the two adventurers disembarked from the ship and set foot on the island. Lilu immediately took Alina on a hike into the mountains. Once they reached the top, Lilu was a little confused. Unlike last time, he could see the whole island from there – not a single tree disturbed his view. On one side of the mountain, a whole section was missing because there had been a huge landslide. But Alina was delighted with the beautiful view.
As it got hotter and hotter, the two set off in search of a shady spot. Lilu told his friend about the large forest where they used to find so much shade and where they could watch the animals, but unfortunately, this forest no longer existed. Finally, they found a small cave between the rocks. It was a little cooler there. Relieved, they rested.
Refreshed, they set off again. Lilu wanted to show Alina the ancient castle. The two of them were happily walking around on top of the walls when Alina suddenly stopped. She pointed to a stone figure whose hat looked very strange. One would think it had been eaten away by moths. Could that be? On closer inspection, Lilu saw that all the figures on the walls looked more broken than he remembered. The two children decided to do some research on this over the next few days.
As evening fell, they made their way home. On the way, they passed a garden where wonderful flowers were growing, very different from their school garden back home. A man and a woman were planting new plants in a bed. Lilu and Alina didn't think twice and asked how they had managed to grow such wonderful plants. The two gardeners smiled and pointed to a box in which the children discovered lots of earthworms, as well as cut grass, dry leaves, and much more.
They would have loved to stay and find out more, but unfortunately, they had to leave. So they bought a few seeds from the gardeners to send to their parents, along with all the beautiful things they had collected on their excursion.
The next morning, they thought about how to pack and pad the parcel so that the large stone wouldn't destroy the small shell and snail shell. While they were still thinking about it, Alina bumped Lilu in the side, startled. A large sign said that unfortunately, the ship could no longer take them back home, as there was no more fuel on the island. How were they supposed to get home at the end of the week?
The two children looked at each other when Lilu suddenly started to cheer. He said to Alina: "This problem gives us a chance to show what we can do! Let's invent a boat that can run without fuel!"
Lilu and Alina immediately got to work. They began their search for suitable materials on the beach. In no time at all, they had their hands full of empty plastic bottles, old sponges, lines, and the remains of fishing nets. All these things had been washed ashore by the sea.
A few children who had also been playing on the beach joined the two young researchers. Together, they wanted to get to the bottom of all the observations in order to understand the changes they had observed there. Perhaps they could develop something to preserve nature on that small island.
The stories for the units
One day, Lilu was walking along the beach. He noticed that the rocks he had been able to climb on last time without getting wet, were now covered in water. “How can that be? Has the sea level risen?” Lilu asked aloud. A seagull landed next to him. “Yes, you're right, the sea level continues to rise. These changes on our planet happen because of climate change,” said the seagull and explained: ”You can learn to better understand the rising sea level with the help of simple experiments. Have fun experimenting!”
- What Causes Ice to Melt?
- How does Global Warming Lead to a Rising Sea Level?
- How does the Melting of Sea Ice or Land Ice affect the Sea Level?
This year it was still particularly hot after the summer vacation. The two friends preferred to meet at Alina's house because of the heat, as it was pleasantly cooler there than at Lilu's house. They wanted to change that. Lilu and his family should also feel comfortable in their house in summer. So they started researching this topic.
One afternoon, Lilu and Alina met up and looked through their photo album from their vacation on the island. They got stuck on the pictures of the stone figure with the strange looking hat. Alina asked in amazement: “Moths don't eat stones, do they?” Together they pondered what might have caused the statue to break. They wanted to find out more.
- How can we Identify Acids and Bases?
- Ocean Acidification
- How does Acid Rain Damage our Buildings?
- How does Acid Rain Affect Plants?
Lilu and Alina were on vacation on their favourite island. It was the end of their vacation, and they wanted to return home. The next day, school would start again, and they were excited to see their friends again.
When they were packing their things, they realized that they had no fuel for their motorboat. How could they get back home from the island? As they were thinking about this, they saw wind turbines far off the shore and had an idea. Could the wind move their boat?
Yes, of course! Lilu and Alina decided to make a sailboat. They wanted to use waste materials that had been washed up the beach to build it. Excited, they ran to the beach. They collected corks, sponges, foam, wooden sticks, old paper and other things, and started working on their boat.
Lilu and Alina had designed a wonderful sailboat to return home from the island. When they tried to sail their boat for the first time, it moved. But there was a problem: The wind was not blowing consistently. When the wind was not blowing, the boat would not move and would stop. Lilu and Alina did not want to get stuck in the middle of the water. So, they had to find another way to move the boat.
That's when their eyes fell on the propeller on their motorboat on the shore. The engine turned the propeller. But could the propeller be moved without an engine, without using fuel? They wanted to find out. Using pieces of wood and rubber bands they found in the water, they built their own boat propeller. Lilu and Alina were excited by their idea. Could their propeller work?
It worked! Lilu and Alina cheered. They could move with their propeller boat – but soon it became very tiring to rotate the propeller, and the weather was hot. The boat was also not moving fast enough. They wished that someone stronger would help them move the propeller. Exhausted, they looked up to the blue sky. The sun was shining bright. This gave Lilu and Alina an idea: They could use solar energy.
For this, they needed a solar panel and a motor. Lilu and Alina moved their boat back to the shore. They visited the farmers on the island and borrowed a solar panel and a motor from them. The two of them were excited that they could use solar energy for their boat and go home safely.
Lilu loved walking in the countryside, enjoying the green of the trees and the fresh smell of the earth after it had rained. One day, Lilu went for a walk in the forest where they used to have picnics when he was little. But something felt different. There were fewer trees, the air was warmer, and the ground was very dry. “This place used to feel so full of life,” Lilu thought.
Just then, a gentle breeze carried the voice of a wise old tree nearby. “We trees help the land stay strong and healthy,” said the tree. Lilu asked, surprised: “Why is that?”
“Well,” said the tree, ”Think about it! Think about the difference in the forest ground when we trees are still around and what the ground would look like when we're gone.”
“Well,” said the tree, ”Think about it! Have you ever noticed a difference when you've been in the shade of an umbrella or the shade of a tree on a hot day? Let's investigate with an experiment.”
Lilu was impressed. He would never have thought that one shadow could be cooler than the other. Now, he wanted to find out more about why this is the case.
Lilu had spent exciting vacations on an island together with his friend Alina. When Lilu came home, he remembered the garden with beautiful flowers he had seen on the island. He was determined to create his very own garden at home.
What was that box full of earthworms and cut grass? Lilu couldn't remember exactly what the two gardeners had explained him about composting. But he remembered that it had something to do with old leaves and kitchen waste. So he started collecting materials for the compost until he had enough to fill four containers. Beforehand, he had thought about what could the best place in his garden to put the compost. To find out, he started an experiment.
Do you remember? Lilu and his friend Alina spent their vacation on an island. During their walks, they had collected beautiful treasures like seashells, snail shells, and plant seeds. Lilu wanted to send the collection home to his parents. But how could he send the objects safely, so that they would not break?
Lilu remembered what his school teacher had said about taking care of the environment. Now he wondered how he could pack his treasures safely using environmentally friendly materials.
It had finally stopped raining. Lilu put on his rubber boots and made his way to his friend Alina. He skipped happily through the puddles until he stopped, startled, on the bridge over a river. A motorboat was anchored on the riverbank. He saw a strange, shimmering spot on the surface of the water at the back of the motorboat. On the other side of the river, a whole load of rubbish was caught between overhanging bushes. Lilu was upset that people were so careless with nature. He urgently wanted to talk to Alina about this.
When he reached Alina, he told her about his observations. Alina was also upset. They thought about how they could get the rubbish out of the water so that the animals living in the river would feel better again. They wanted to go to the river first thing in the morning and start their planned experiments.
When Lilu set off for the river the next morning, he was surprised to realise that he had put on his rubber boots for nothing – all the puddles were gone. What had happened to the water in the puddles? So many things he wanted to investigate together with Alina. Would you like to help the two of them?
- Puddles: What Happens to Polluted Water within the Water Cycle?
- Shimmering spot: Oil Spill Cleanup
- Rubbish in the river: Does Rubbish Float or Sink?
Share this page
