Yellowknife (Apr 19/06) - Students got a chance to learn about the importance of watersheds with an open house in the Great Hall of the legislature Tuesday.

The Grade 2 class from Range Lake North elementary school was among more than 600 students who passed through the open house this week. Watersheds are the theme for this year's National Wildlife Week.

John Alexander shows students from Range Lake North elementary school the finer points of Northern fossils at the National Wildlife Week open house at the legislature's Great Hall Tuesday. - Chris Windeyer/NNSL photo

"We wanted to give kids an idea of what a watershed is, who would use it and why watersheds would be important to wildlife and to people," said Sunny Ashcroft of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Displays centred on the hands-on, and included a hand-painted diorama of the water cycle. There were also displays about the people and animals who use the Arctic Ocean watershed.

Lois Harwood, a marine mammal biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, had seal pelts and a radio tracker for students to examine.

"I would like to pique their interest in natural history and some of the research we're doing," she said.

John Alexander of John A's Paleo Emporium explained to students how what is now the Northwest Territories was covered by a warm, shallow sea hundreds of millions of years ago and showed them fossils of the plants and animals that once lived there.

"You get a lot of 'oohs' and 'ahs' over time," Alexander said. "The age of things gets them."

Teacher Kathy Lippert said she uses the classroom as a way to get her students more familiar with the natural environment. She also likes the opportunity for her students to do some hands-on learning outside of school.

"I think with hands-on activities they just learn more about their environment than just learning about it in class," Lippert said. "The more they hear it the more it sinks in."

Student Mykayla Heard, 7, said the open house made her more interested in science. She was particularly taken with Alexander's hundred-million year-old fossils.

"I think it's cool," she said. "You get to see lots of fossils and you get to paint."