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Handbook of Nature-Study 



What the children find living in the brook. 



Method — The best time to study a brook is after a rain, and October or 

 May is an interesting time for beginning this lesson. The work should be 

 continued during the entire year. It may be done at noon or recess, if the 

 brook is near at hand; or there may be excursions after school, if the brook 

 is at some distance. The observations should be made by the class as a 

 whole. 



Observations — i. Does the brook have its source in a spring or a 

 swamp, or does it receive its water as drainage from surrounding hills? 

 Follow it back to its very beginning. Do you find this in open fields or 

 woods? Is the land about it level or hilly? 



2. Are its banks deeper at the beginning, or is the brook at first almost 

 on a level with the surrou.nding fields? Do the banks become deeper 

 farther from the source ? Are the banks higher where the brook flows down 

 hill, or where it is on a level ? 



3 . Is the course of the brook more crooked on a hillside or when flowing 

 through a level area ? Are the banks more worn away and steep where the 

 brook flows through woods or bushes than through the open fields ? 



4. Can you find the places where the water is cutting the banks most, 

 when the brook is flooded? Why does it cut the banks at these particiilar 

 points ? 



5. Into what stream, pond or lake does the brook flow? If you should 

 launch a toy boat upon the waters of this brook, and it should keep afloat, 

 through what streams would it pass to reach the ocean? Through what 

 townships, counties, states or countries would it pass? 



6. When is the brook working and when is it playing? What is the 

 difference between the color of the water ordinarily and when the brook is 

 flooded? What causes this difference? 



