This week we participated in a Water Conference . Every morning we gathered into Circle Hall to sing and to do movement to water songs with Marilyn. After that a group of companions, high school students and co-workers went to the horse shoe pitch to meet Jennifer Greene who led us in water experiments.
In our first science experiment, we put a syringe into a jar of clear white water and drew up water bubbles. When this was happening we wanted to see how fast the water bubbles would go down. We observed that the water bubbles went down very slowly. Then we repeated the same experiment, but this time we put a blue dye into the water. We saw that the water bubbles went down faster than they did in the white clear water experiment.
On Tuesday morning, we did two more experiments. We poured water into a wooden box and took a syringe or a needle and dropped blue dye dots into the water. Then we drew a couple of lines through the dots and we discovered that the dots turned into a vortex in the water. In our next experiment we poured a small stream of gravity fed water to flow down the length of an eight foot table. We observed that the water had pulsating rhythms, vortexes and counter flows. The use of potassium permanganate turned pink and allowed us to see the movements in the water.
In our fourth experiment on Wednesday, we took a ruler and stirred around the water in a jar to create a vortex. Then we used a syringe to put six drops of blue liquid into the vortex. We saw that the blue drops were floating underneath the vortex making different patterns reminding us of a jelly fish and a cone.
On Thursday morning, Jennifer repeated the same experiments and then she did demonstrations. She took two buckets and put them on top of each other and poured ink into the bucket to show us a vortex ring. After that we got to do the experiment ourselves. Then we watched a slide show of other experiments.
On Friday we celebrated Michaelmas. We gathered into Circle Hall and sang St. Michael songs. After that we broke into four groups. Three of the groups went out to the gardens and collected leaves, beans, tomatoes, flowers, kale and grapes for our harvest meal. The fourth group made soup and buns.
After a short break we gathered back into Circle Hall to watch presentations of the different ways that water is used. Water is used in art, speech, drawing, music and dance. Jennifer showed us a cylinder made of strings and she showed us images on a projector of different geometric forms. When we moved the forms through the cylinder, we saw them double and change their shapes. After that the Clay Workshop presented their project by showing us pictures of water drops that they drew. Then they showed us a mountain fountain that they made. Also they showed us the different words that they made having to do with water (drop, flow, aqua) Next we saw how water is used by the speech and eurythmy group. This group came up with a poem about water that they taught us and then we clapped the rhythm. Lastly the music group led by Marilyn taught us a song called ‘Oh, Water, Oh Water.’ During this presentation a couple of companions played their instruments.

In the afternoon, our parents came to Circle Hall and watched our performance of “The Water of Life”.

The 3 princes in the Water of Life

The 3 princes in the Water of Life