Yesterday, it was 82˚. By this afternoon, the temperature was down to 52˚ and still dropping.
We bundled up and headed to the pond habitat to spread our seed balls. The children had great fun placing each ball and then walking on it to press it into the soil. Hopefully, the low night temperature tonight doesn't foil our efforts!
Last week, the children worked together to create seed balls. They combined humus and clay,
mixed in wildflower seeds, and moistened it with enough water to create marble-sized seed balls.
We are hoping to create a wildflower meadow around our pond habitat. I can't wait until spring to see what sprouts and blooms!
This is especially exciting because in Summer 2015, I had the great joy of visiting Indonesia's Komodo National Park to see komodo dragons in person!
Komodo dragons are the largest lizards alive today. Adults typically weigh around 150 pounds, with lengths of 7.5 to 8.5 feet (though there have been individuals that grew over 10 feet long!). Scientists believe that komodo dragons are similar to large lizards that were more common millions of years ago.
Komodos have an impressive sense of smell. They use their forked tongues to sample (and chemically analyze) smells in the air. Under the right conditions, komodo dragons can detect prey up to 2.5 miles away. Their eyes are tuned to detect movement. This is important for hunting. When the hunt is successful, an individual may eat a single meal of 50 to 80% of its body weight. To assist with this feasting, the stomach stretches easily and the jaw opens unusually wide.
Don't try this at home! Komodo dragons are dangerous and will attack humans.
This photo is mis-leading. I am really a very safe distance away.
What a joyful day of field work we had at the Arboretum today!
Photo courtesy of L. Ganem
We began with a short indoor class on food chains, where we learned about producers, consumers (herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores), and decomposers. Soon, we formed smaller groups and headed outside with nets and plastic tubs for some pond dipping.
The children took turns pulling nets through the water to collect a sample of organisms (and mud) from the pond.
They sorted through each sample,
transferring any finds to a tub of clear water for closer observation.
Photo courtesy of B. Atkinson
We then used a record page to identify the organisms and classify the consumers as herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores.
My group observed turtles, tadpoles, a leech, a water boatman, mosquito fish, a fishing spider, a water scorpion, and lots of crawfish.
We were also excited to see a Broad-Banded Water Snake winding its way through the pond. I was impressed by how well its pattern camouflaged with the narrow oak leaves floating on the water.
After lunch, we broke into small groups (4-5 children with an adult chaperone) for a hike. The children used nature awareness skills, including a Fox Walk, Deer Ears, Owl Eyes, Eagle Eyes, and Dog Nose, to increase our likelihood of spotting something interesting.
A super-sneaky Fox Walk
On outdoor field trips, each group carries a Field Pack, empowering the children with the tools to navigate, observe, measure, identify, and record in the field (clockwise from top left):
* Field guides (Sky Watcher Chart, Texas Wildlife, Texas Trees & Wildflowers, Texas Butterflies & Moths, Houston Birds, Rocks, Gems and Minerals Golden Guide, and Fossils Golden Guide) * Binoculars
* Compass
* Fold-away keychain magnifier
* Measuring tape
* Specimen container
* Golf pencils(stored in an M&Ms tube)
* Field notebook
* Colored pencils
* First aid kit (gloves, wet wipe, alcohol wipe, tooth container, Kleenex, Band-aids, tiny bottle of hand sanitizer)
Each Cooperative Science Group has an assigned color. This pack belongs to "the green group."
Thank you to the generous donors who have funded additions to these kits over the years. The other teacher who went with us told me at the end of the day that one of her students had commented wistfully, trail map in hand, "Boy, it sure would be nice if we had a compass."
The children identified and drew the clouds and recorded our wildlife sightings in the group's field notebook.
More than once, we paused so the children could identify a butterfly or a caterpillar.
Photo courtesy of B. Atkinson
(and I managed to sneak in purposeful and highly motivated reading, even on a day we spent outside!)
We used binoculars to examine a group of four hawks circling overhead.
We rolled a rotting log (toward us so that frightened critters have an escape route away from us) and used the magnifier for a closer look at termites.
When we arrived at a meadow pond, the children suggested a Sit Spot, some quiet time to sit, just watching and listening.
Photo courtesy of C. Pratt
Apparently, my group wasn't the only one with this instinct.
Photo courtesy of C. Pratt
There's something about being in nature that quiets the mind and body.
One of our parent chaperones wrote to me after we'd all gone home for the day, "Today was super fun and your class is lovely. All of the children were the right amount of curious, energetic and engaged." Yes!
Hello from CAST (Conference for the Advancement of Science Teaching), the Texas science teachers' annual conference! It's so invigorating to meet up with other teachers who share my passion for science!
I've spent the last two days learning with other teachers. As I sent friends and colleagues photos and brief notes about what I was doing, I realized, a little guiltily, that it felt like playing (a happy distraction from post-election news). But that's what I love about science (and why this English major has spent so many hours in science workshops over the years). Science is messy. It's a verb, not a noun. Instead of sitting back and passively absorbing knowledge, you get your hands in there and you DO. So the joy of discovery that comes with learning feels like play. I was tired at the end of the day because I had spent so much time engrossed in learning and thinking, but the kind of learning we were doing is engaging, stimulating, and fun in a deeply satisfying way, something like what Mihaly Csikszentmihályi refers to as "flow."
I think that's why children love science so much. Wondering and experimenting is innately human. From the time we are babies, we wonder, "What if?" and drop something onto the floor. A kind parent or caregiver retrieves the object, and the child tests the results again . . . and again. The progress of a walk is slow because a toddler pauses often to squat to the ground and examine something closely. At its best, learning pairs natural curiosity with the joyful nature of discovery.
Here's a sample of how I spent my time:
In Dissect, Discover & Diagram an Ecosystem, we dissected and compared a pair of owl pellets (one from the Northwest region of the U.S. and one from the Southeast). SO much fun! Each owl pellet contains an entire skeleton. Ward's Science has put together a dichotomous identification key to help students identify the organism contained in their owl pellet. The children can then draw conclusions about differences between the diet of owls in different regions of the United States. This activity integrates so much science: food chains and food webs, predator/prey relationships, skeletal anatomy, measurement, regional differences in animals, adaptations, and more.
Plus, it is great fun to dig through a furry
pellet and discover all the tiny bones of a rodent skeleton. You know you're in the right company when you confess to a stranger that you have re-purposed roadkill to model vertebrate paleontology field work and the resulting "Oh, wow" is more impressed enthusiasm than fear and revulsion. :)
At the end of the workshop, I managed to scavenge enough probes, rulers, and plastic trays for all five of my Cooperative Investigation science groups.
At Flood! A Catastrophic Event in the Watershed, we experimented with the porosity and permeability of different-sized sediment particles and also got to see this incredible Stormwater Floodplain model. Watch the video! What a powerful tool! If only I had an unlimited budget, along with unlimited storage space.
Bringing STEM to Light: We experimented with red, green, and blue light, overlapping all three and then attempting to sort M&Ms by color under different-colored lights. I am so excited to receive this kit for free and take it home to share it with my students!
Paper Airplane Investigation: A STEM workshop on the design and flight path of paper airplanes
I wish I had a good photo of teachers throwing paper airplanes all over the conference room!
At Go Go Gadget Girls, we learned about an after-school STEM club for girls, and we designed and launched straw rockets.
Carolina offered a Hands-On Science with Classroom Critters workshop in which we played with bugs. First, we popped open a tube of termites. It turns out that certain pen inks mimic termite pheromones, and they will follow the path of a line of this ink on paper. Wow!
Next up were roly-polies (aka pillbugs or doodlebugs). We placed the terrestrial isopods in the center of a Carolina "Choice Chamber" and added a variable (a heat pack underneath one chamber or covering one chamber to create darkness) to one chamber. Then we watched to see if they showed a preference.
Finally, we measured the mass Bessbugs are capable of pulling. They are impressively strong!
Two workshops featured actual field work, using the habitat along the river that flows in the Grotto area under the Convention Center. The first was Project ACORN: Place-based STEM Project 3rd-8th Grade. This is a group of students who grow and plant seedlings of native trees. They also conduct field work at their planting sites, measuring and recording observations of air, water, and soil temperatures, cloud cover and cloud type, dissolved oxygen, pH levels, and turbidity of water, GPS, rainfall, wind speed and direction within the local ecosystem over time. For the conference, we were able to observe local students collecting this data on a field trip at the Convention Center.
Another workshop, Pond's Life, used the same outdoor area to practice collection and identification of aquatic macroinvertebrates and to teach about their use as water quality indicators.
Honestly, I avoided the workshops promoting a proliferation of computerized/digital science programs (EduSmart, STEMscopes--a major sponsor of the conference, it does have a hands-on component if the school pays for the materials kit and the teacher uses it, BirdBrain Science, TI-Nspire's "Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse," ExploreLearning, and more), featuring simulations, "interactivity," vocabulary modules, and videos. Maybe I am old-fashioned (or just plain old!), but I think it has more to do with a deep conviction that brains-under-construction need direct engagement with the world around them. Dr. Maria Montessori wrote, “The hands are the instruments of man’s intelligence” (The Absorbent Mind). I understand that digital simulations save districts money in materials and save teachers time in set-up of materials and clean-up of messes, but children need to put their hands on real objects and observe real living organisms. Children need to get their hands dirty and engage in direct experiences rather than virtual experiences on screens.
