"Observing expands your world; the more you see, hear, feel smell and taste, the more you will understand. You become attuned to the context of objects you previously thought of as isolated; you find they are connected to other objects and events."- Claire Walker Leslie, author of Keeping a Nature Journal
 |
| Observing animal behavior |
 |
| Mule deer on the playground |
Monday, September 9:
mushroom walk, sorting mushrooms, and making spore prints
Sources: The Fungus Files: An Educator's Guide (source: the North American Mycological Institute)
Grade Level: Elementary
Objective: Students will begin to learn about mushrooms/fungi/decomposers through guided exploration of their environment.
Materials: Fungus Files handouts, National Audubon Society Familiar Mushrooms Pocket Guide, Mushrooms of North America, an assortment of preselected wild mushrooms, construction paper, cups
Class introduction/hook: Mary Oliver poem (Mushrooms), mushroom walk
Class introduction/hook: Mary Oliver poem (Mushrooms), mushroom walk
We began class by reading Mary Oliver's poem Mushrooms. The kids closed their eyes and I read out loud. They told me what images they liked. I asked them what they knew about mushrooms. We talked about decomposers and their role in the ecosystem.
We walked the Nature Trail (one of our community's many maintained trails) with field guides we'd made (using handouts printed from The Fungus Files: An Educator's Guide) and field guides we found from the library. We learned about the parts of a mushroom--we talked about gills and teeth, cups and caps. When we found a mushroom that caught our attention we talked about which characteristics it had and which it didn't. Sometimes we unearthed a mushroom completely to examine its cup. We carried several mushrooms back to school with us for further identification and spore printing.
When we returned to school, M & M found the library table covered in mushrooms my housemate had collected over the weekend. We talked about ways to sort mushrooms and they told me half a dozen ways to group the mushrooms laid out before us. They each picked five mushrooms to identify using their field guides and four mushrooms to spore print.
Class finished with M & M reporting to their teacher Kim about the day's findings.
Tuesday, September 10:
discussion: "What is a fungi?", yeast experiment, mold garden set-up
Sources: The Fungus Files: An Educator's Guide (source: the North American Mycological Institute)
Materials:
empty soda bottle, baking yeast, sugar, lichen, mushrooms, balloon, bread (white and whole wheat), fruit, plastic sandwich bags, BBC "Planet Wild" Fungi video clip
Objectives:
Students will continue to learn about the characteristics of fungi and its role in the environment. They will begin to conduct experiments and become familiar with the process of making predictions.
Class introduction/hook: "What is a fungus?" activity (Students looked at a variety of materials and told me which one didn't fit.)
On our second day of science, M & M started their class by telling me what they remembered from the previous day. They pointed out the parts of a mushroom on a display I'd made for the hallway.
We walked to the library where I'd laid out a bean plant, a packet of yeast, a stick covered in wolf lichen, and a mushroom. I asked which didn't belong. The kids paused before their eyes got big and excited: "The plant! It's not a fungi! It gets it's energy from the sun!"
We talked about yeast and our prior knowledge about bread baking. We filled a soda bottle with warm water, sugar, and yeast, and sealed it with a balloon. Both kids hypothesized the balloon would expand when the yeast began to eat the sugar. Their predictions proved correct.
We prepared another experiment. We sealed white bread, whole wheat bread, and half a peach in plastic bags in order to grow a "mold garden." M & M each predicted which food item would grow the most mold. We decided to store our growing garden of mold in a library cupboard because fungi don't photosynthesize and therefore don't need a sunlit environment.
We finished class with a short BBC video clip about fungi. M & M loved seeing puffballs the size of melons roll across a field and asked to re-watch the scene several times. The video's focus on spores prompted us to look at our previous day's spore prints. Most had not turned out--but one was perfect: a yellow spore silhouette of gills on red-card stock.
We finished class with a short BBC video clip about fungi. M & M loved seeing puffballs the size of melons roll across a field and asked to re-watch the scene several times. The video's focus on spores prompted us to look at our previous day's spore prints. Most had not turned out--but one was perfect: a yellow spore silhouette of gills on red-card stock.
Wednesday, September 11:
making insect traps, nature walk, bark discussion, bark rubbings, "meet a tree," tree poem
(Sources: My First Nature Book, Sharing Nature with Children)
Objective: Students will begin to be able to identify species through their characteristics and adaptations.
Materials:
My First Nature Book, trowels, cork board, plastic container, pineapple, construction paper, masking tape, crayons
Class introduction/hook: My First Nature Book picture walk-through and bug-trap building
On our third day of science we shifted away from fungi. M & M looked through our school library's copy of My First Nature Book and marked some activities they hoped to do (they expressed interest in building a terrarium and hatching caterpillars.) I flipped to an activity I wanted to start the day with: building a bug trap. They repeated "BUG TRAP!" in an enthusiastic synchronized M & M echo.
We went out into the streets singing a song about a moose and gathered bug-trap building materials: a trowel, a cork board, a plastic container, and a piece of pineapple. We shifted spots three times before finding a place near the playground where the soil was soft enough to dig. We dug a hole deep enough to place our plastic container in and baited the trap with pineapple. We propped the cork-board over the container using boulders to create a safe-shaded space. We hope insects and arachnids will crawl in, attracted to the scent of fruit, but the plastic's slick surface will make it difficult to crawl out, leaving us with a nice sample of insects to study tomorrow.
After we built our bug trap, we headed to the Nature Trail. We discussed tree-bark and its function. We talked about trees that have thick bark (Douglas firs, ponderosa pines) and trees that have thin bark (cedars.) Thick bark takes a lot of energy to produce but protects the trees from fire, insects, and other environmental threats. Thin bark proves less protective but requires less energy to grow so the plant can focus on photosynthesizing. We made bark rubbings of Douglas firs, spruce, and cedars using construction paper and crayons.
We then did one of my favorite forest activities: Meet a Tree. Meet a Tree was an activity I used to do in my forest ecology classes when I worked as a naturalist. I later learned the activity comes from Joseph Cornell's wonderful book Sharing Nature With Children. In the activity students work in pairs (an easy job for M & M.) One partner closes his or her eyes. The other partner (carefully) leads his or her friend to a tree. The person with his or her eyes closed uses his or her senses to "meet the tree." (I often tell students: touch your tree, hug your tree, smell it, feel it, or tell it a secret.) He or she is then led back to his or her starting point and challenged to find his or her tree with his or her eyes open. M & M had no trouble finding their trees and wanted to repeat the activity several times. They even had me close my eyes while they led me to a cedar which had fallen on the side of the trail.
On our way back, we talked about action words. For every verb we brainstormed, we did the activity it indicated. We ran, skipped, race-walked, and hopped back to the classroom where M & M finished their day by writing a poem about cedars:
Cedar
by M & M
Growing
Absorbing
Standing
Curling
Rubbing
Peeling
Falling
Photosynthesizing
Thin-bark
Smooth
Roots
Sooo beautiful.
Washington State content areas covered:
EALR 2: Inquiry
Big Idea: Inquiry
Core Content: Conducting Investigations
Students know that:
-2-3 INQA Question Scientific investigations are designed to gain knowledge about the natural world.
-2-3 INQB Investigate A scientific investigation may include making and following a plan to accurately observe and describe objects, events, and organisms; make and record measurements, and predict outcomes.
Students are expected to:
• Explain how observations can lead to new knowledge and new questions about the natural world.
• Work with other students to make and follow a plan to carry out a scientific investigation. Actions may include accurately observing and describing objects, events, and organisms; measuring and recording data; and predicting outcomes.
EALR 4: Life Science
Big Idea: Biological Evolution (LS3)
Core Content: Variation of Inherited Characteristics
(Sources: My First Nature Book, Sharing Nature with Children)
Objective: Students will begin to be able to identify species through their characteristics and adaptations.
Materials:
My First Nature Book, trowels, cork board, plastic container, pineapple, construction paper, masking tape, crayons
Class introduction/hook: My First Nature Book picture walk-through and bug-trap building
On our third day of science we shifted away from fungi. M & M looked through our school library's copy of My First Nature Book and marked some activities they hoped to do (they expressed interest in building a terrarium and hatching caterpillars.) I flipped to an activity I wanted to start the day with: building a bug trap. They repeated "BUG TRAP!" in an enthusiastic synchronized M & M echo.
We went out into the streets singing a song about a moose and gathered bug-trap building materials: a trowel, a cork board, a plastic container, and a piece of pineapple. We shifted spots three times before finding a place near the playground where the soil was soft enough to dig. We dug a hole deep enough to place our plastic container in and baited the trap with pineapple. We propped the cork-board over the container using boulders to create a safe-shaded space. We hope insects and arachnids will crawl in, attracted to the scent of fruit, but the plastic's slick surface will make it difficult to crawl out, leaving us with a nice sample of insects to study tomorrow.
After we built our bug trap, we headed to the Nature Trail. We discussed tree-bark and its function. We talked about trees that have thick bark (Douglas firs, ponderosa pines) and trees that have thin bark (cedars.) Thick bark takes a lot of energy to produce but protects the trees from fire, insects, and other environmental threats. Thin bark proves less protective but requires less energy to grow so the plant can focus on photosynthesizing. We made bark rubbings of Douglas firs, spruce, and cedars using construction paper and crayons.
We then did one of my favorite forest activities: Meet a Tree. Meet a Tree was an activity I used to do in my forest ecology classes when I worked as a naturalist. I later learned the activity comes from Joseph Cornell's wonderful book Sharing Nature With Children. In the activity students work in pairs (an easy job for M & M.) One partner closes his or her eyes. The other partner (carefully) leads his or her friend to a tree. The person with his or her eyes closed uses his or her senses to "meet the tree." (I often tell students: touch your tree, hug your tree, smell it, feel it, or tell it a secret.) He or she is then led back to his or her starting point and challenged to find his or her tree with his or her eyes open. M & M had no trouble finding their trees and wanted to repeat the activity several times. They even had me close my eyes while they led me to a cedar which had fallen on the side of the trail.
On our way back, we talked about action words. For every verb we brainstormed, we did the activity it indicated. We ran, skipped, race-walked, and hopped back to the classroom where M & M finished their day by writing a poem about cedars:
Cedar
by M & M
Growing
Absorbing
Standing
Curling
Rubbing
Peeling
Falling
Photosynthesizing
Thin-bark
Smooth
Roots
Sooo beautiful.
Washington State content areas covered:
EALR 2: Inquiry
Big Idea: Inquiry
Core Content: Conducting Investigations
Students know that:
-2-3 INQA Question Scientific investigations are designed to gain knowledge about the natural world.
-2-3 INQB Investigate A scientific investigation may include making and following a plan to accurately observe and describe objects, events, and organisms; make and record measurements, and predict outcomes.
Students are expected to:
• Explain how observations can lead to new knowledge and new questions about the natural world.
• Work with other students to make and follow a plan to carry out a scientific investigation. Actions may include accurately observing and describing objects, events, and organisms; measuring and recording data; and predicting outcomes.
EALR 4: Life Science
Big Idea: Biological Evolution (LS3)
Core Content: Variation of Inherited Characteristics
Students know that:
-2-3 LS3A There are variations among the same kinds of plants and animals.
-2-3 LS3B The offspring of a plant or animal closely resembles its parents, but close inspection reveals differences
-2-3 LS3C Sometimes differences in characteristics give individual plants or animals an advantage in surviving and reproducing.
• Give examples of variations among individuals of the same kinds of plants and animals within a population (e.g., tall and short pine trees, black cats and white cats, people with blue eyes or brown eyes, with freckles or without).
• Compare the offspring of a plant or animal with its parents, listing features that are similar and that are different.
• Predict how differences in characteristics might help one individual survive better than another (e.g., animals that are stronger or faster, plants or animals that blend into the background, plants that grow taller or that need less water to survive).
No comments:
Post a Comment