Little Ruaha River Investigation at Masumbo

We went to Masumbo, to the Little Ruaha River to do an investigation.



 

First we had to cross the river to get to the bank on the other side. We went on the zip wire which is so much fun!


Amisadai ready to cross the river

We measured how wide the river was at one place and how deep it was all the way across. Then we were able to draw a Cross Section of the river, which shows us what the river bed looks like. Amisadai can tell you more about what we discovered.

We also did a pooh-stick experiment. Amisadai sat at a rock and I sat 5 metres down the river. We measured the time it took for a stick to get from Amisadai all the way to me. We did this eight times. Then we did the same thing but with oranges. Mum had to go in and try and catch the orange! She jumped up to her chest in water with all her clothes on!

We discovered that the average time taken to travel 5m was 11.22 seconds for the stick and 11.67 seconds for the orange. (We did a lot of maths when we got home.) By dividing the 5m distance by the time, we then calculated that the speed of the Little Ruaha at our first site was 0.45m/s. We did it all again further up the river and it was only 0.29m/s. (Amisadai and Mum helped me write this bit all this out!)

You should try it at a river where you live and see what the flow is for your river compared to ours. Let us know what you discover!

We sat on some rocks and did some sketching of the river. We also sat and wrote down and took photos of our observations.



SIGNS OF EROSION



SIGNS OF TRANSPORTATION

I observed that the river bank was eroding because I could see trees had gone and were almost gone! I saw evidence of transportation when I saw a bit of tree trunk stuck by the river bank. I observed the river bed and bank was very soft sand and there were lots of rocks. We took a river sample back to Iringa.

I also drew a map of the river at Masumbo, wrote a river poem and did a river painting and made river collages with our photos.



WATERFALLS: ENERGETIC RIVER!
Look at the cool erosion in the rock where I am pointing!

And one more thing ... I just put another book review on our book review page.