Me and Matilda went to a Poo Factory today. There was a man there called Richard who was the teacher. He told us four stories, showed us a vedio, talked about poo, wee, and took us to a tour around all the things in his place about poo and how things get there and down the loo. First he told us two stories called ‘Puppy’ and ‘false leg’. ‘Puppy’ was about a four-year-old boy and his new puppy. He went outside with his puppy (say called Joe) and got him rather muddy. But four-year-olds aren’t very tall, and he wanted to give Joe a bath. But he couldn’t reach the sink, bath or anywhere usual people wash their puppies. The only place he could reach was the toilet…So he put the puppy into the toilet. Then he took the puppy out and decided it needed a rince. So, he flushed him down the toilet…Uh-oh. His mummy called some people and they dug up half the garden. They found Joe (who seemed to be perfectly fine) and gave him back to the little boy. “Yah!” he said. “Joey again! Let’s celebrate the town with chocolate! Can we, maam?”
Then Richard took us to a lllooonnnggg tour around the sewage works. He showed us rivers of poo and urine (what scientists call wee). He showed us all the machines and filters and tanks and huge lorries and trucks. The first filter was really big, which took out the big chunky things like mobile phones and false teeth, but more commonly cotton buds, wipes, nappies and plasters – things like that that people should put in the bin not drains and toilet sewers. Then we saw a smaller filter which took out things like sweetcorn or anything you haven’t chewed up properly. Then they use good bacteria to eat up the nasty germs and bad bacteria. Also, they use it to get rid of all the watery bits and then the poo-people scrape up all the dry poo from it and sell it to the farmers who put it on their soil to help the crops.
In the first picture above Richard is standing in some stones. On the stones is good bacteria, and coming out of the long poles is sewage water. It pours onto the stones and the good bacteria eats up the bad bacteria. On the next picture, Richard is in a big, green cupboard, where they test if the water is clean enough. The clean water can’t be too clean because the fish (Richard is trying to make it clean enough to go back into the river) eat the things in the water, and if it is too clean those tiny things will get washed away and the fish will die of starvation. 🙁
After lunch we did an experiment in the classroom. The experiment was ‘stir up the things people should and shouldn’t put in the toilet and then what happens?’. We stirred, in order:
water – it was normal water.
oil – the oil floated in weird shapes.
weetabix – It went soggy, turned white, got smaller and sank to the bottom.
washing powder – most of it desolved but there were a few bits left because the water had saturated which means you need more water for those bits to desolve.
tea and a teabag – it went brown.
wee – it was still like before.
poo – still like before but with a poo in it. 😛
cotton bud – normal, just with a cotton bud in it.
baby wipe – the muddy stuff clung to it like it was its mother.
loo-roll – it went soggy and floated on the surface.
Then I did filtering with a girl called Megan. We had three filters, each filled with different things: one with a piece of coffee-paper curled inside it. A different one had a sieve in and the last had some balls of cotton wool in. We had to both choose which order we should filter the dirty water in. We chose: sieve, cotton wool and then coffee-paper. It was the best order anyone had made, because the sieve drained out the big, clumpy dirty bits and then the cotton wool drained out even smaller bits and then the coffee-paper drained the teeniest, even smaller bits out. So, mine and Megan’s water was aloud to go back in the river – definitely! (Richard knew this with his excellent sniffing nose!)
During lunch-time, I got my 3rd Famous Five out, because I can’t help reading that book! Then Richard came over and said, “Which one’s that? 3RD? I’ve read all the Famous Five and Secret Seven! Ha!” Then I talked about how our concoction was like George’s Marvelous Medicine and all about the Roald Dahl books, and he was quite amazed!
I liked the four stories he told us, and I’m going to make a story about something in the sewage-works. It’s probably going to be next week because I am VERY busy at the moment. We’re going to Wrest Park later to play with our friend, then we’re going to pick up my brother from school and see his arm (unfortunately William (my brother) has broken his wrist from falling out of a tree!). Then we’re going to go to Nanny’s house and see Auntie Beci who is very heavily pregnant and then we’re going to give Nanny a Chesea Bun (because we made them yesterday while Tilly was in london with our friends Elise and Taryn and Freya and Lara was there too)! Then I’m going to cricket later. Then tomorrow I’m going to a really long hike (Tilly can’t because she’s with her friend again and William can’t because he’s broken his wrist). Then me and mummy have to pick Tilly up and the next day we are going to the car-boot sale and then (if William can bike-ride with one arm) we’ll have a bike-ride, and then I’ll write my story. That’s how busy I am, I know.