Project Scat
How animal poo is good for you…
Project Scat:
Have children think outside the box with this creative project, as they think, “How can animal poop (scat) be helpful to our world?”.
Children will be harnessing their science skills, creative thinking skills, research skills, problem solving skills, economics, and presentation skills in this one-of-a-kind project.
How can SCAT be ‘Beneficial’?
Fertilizers!
Fertilizing Soil:
Scat, animal poop, or manure, can help plants grow by enriching the soil in which they grow. The manure supplies nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. This helps speed up decomposition and lowers the pH of the soil, which helps the plants grow!
Which animal scat is good for soil?
Cows, worms, llamas, & chickens!
(NOT dogs! Pick up your dog’s poop!)
You can even start a compost bin with worms to make your own fertilized soil at home!
Fertilizing the Ocean!
Whales eat deep in the ocean, but they poo (about 3 tons a day!) in shallow water. This releases huge amounts of nitrogen and iron that brings essential nutrients to the water’s surface for fish, algae, and plankton to feed off. This helps keep the ocean’s ecosystem thriving! It also helps keep plankton alive and healthy, which in turn helps our climate as plankton absorb tons of carbon dioxide!
Clean Water
Virginia Military Institute used llama scat to help clean the water in a Bolivian village. They built a carbon filtration using charred llama scat as their carbon source to attract and trap pollutants, removing them from the water. They collected llama poop, then burned it, ground it up, and used it in contaminated water. It was able to remove more than 90 percent of iron, copper, and lead from the water. CRAZY!
Products
Facial Masks- Nightingale scat or ‘Uguisu poo’ has been used since ancient times in Japan as a facial mask.
Coffee- Kopi Luwak is a type of sought-after and expensive coffee made in Asia. The animal, a civet, eats coffee berries and poops them out. The undigested coffee berries go through a unique fermenting process in the civet’s digestive system and then the resulting scat is quickly collected by farmers. The collected scat berries go through an extensive process of washing, drying, and sorting. The beans get ground into a very expensive and tasty coffee drink or other treats!
Paper- in Sri Lanka they had an excess of elephant scat (1 elephant can create 200 lbs of dung in a day!) so they came up with an innovative process to sanitize the poop and turn it into paper!
Seed Planting
Birds- bird scat often has undigested berries or seeds in it that land somewhere and may grow into plants!
Tambaqui fish- this fish eats seeds and then poops them out, planting them up to 3 miles away-adding new plants to wherever they swim!
and even FUEL!
learn more about how cow manure can be turned into fuel & hopefully help our environment
‘Explore More: Scat & Tracks'
Learning Magazine
Our newest learning magazine is available NOW to help your young investigator safely hunt for and analyze tracks and scat!
Children can harness their math skills (measuring, geometry, arithmetic, graphing), language arts skills (writing, reading, vocabulary), science skills (animals, contrast, compare), and problem solving skills all while having fun and exploring scat and tracks!
Learn more about our 13 page bundle of hands-on learning in the great outdoors!
