Project Share and Bio-Indicators

We started our day with some awesome Systems Project Presentations!  I am really proud of the products that were shared!  It has been great for the presenters as well as the audience to practice systems thinking and see the examples that are being shown.  Next week we will hear from the rest of the class!

Gas Station

Bedroom

Library

Living Room

We didn't neglect our Gray Area investigation.  Students reflected on our last time together and compared a river to the report card of it's watershed. They role-played a reenactment of a meeting of the Gray Area Board of Supervisors where our suspect, the owner of the water slide, was consulted and shared results from chlorine tests conducted down the river from his business.  Students took a closer look at the results, performed a bio-assessment of their own on a macro-invertebrate called daphnia to check the more long term effects of chlorine on the area, and examined some secret documents that provided further clues.

Meeting of the Board of Supervisors

Looking into the secret files.

We also read the second chapter of Listening to Crickets, our novel study about environmentalist Rachel Carson.  We are learning from her example and identifying Habits of Mind that Rachel used to find success in her field.

WATER!

This week, from our Morphic Thinking all the way to our farewell our focus was on water.  Students read A River Ran Wild by Lynne Cherry and saw the effects of disrespecting water as a resource. They also saw that there is hope for restoration of polluted waterways and how they can play a part in the solution.  Research was done on watersheds and students got to participate in a simulation of pollution's downstream journey.

We also looked at different tests that can be conducted to evaluate water quality.  Some of these tests will help us identify our Gray Area culprit.  We learned about turbidity tests to check for clarity and sediments, (helpful in the investigation of the erosion caused by the clear-cutting logging company) phosphate and nitrate tests to see if fertilizers may be causing an abundance of algae growth, (helpful in the investigation of the cattle ranch and farm)  bio-assessment tests for macro-invertebrates, and pH tests.  We also were introduced to our novel study of Listening to Crickets, a story of conservationist Rachel Carson.

Listening to Crickets

Watershed demonstration.

Compiling evidence for our Gray Area suspects.

Welcome to Gray Area

We are officially embarking on our journey as environmental detectives!  Today students did a review of systems and a teamwork challenge to prepare themselves for their upcoming experiences. Students were introduced to the Gray Area and the mysterious fish kill that has been taking place there over the last five years.  They met some of the key players (suspects?!?!) in the region, looked at maps of the area to identify factors that may be at play, and studied the history of the area as they compiled a time line of events and developments over the past 100 years.  Throughout this semester they will be acting as scientists, council members, reporters, and detectives as they conduct tests and research to uncover the reason behind the declining fish population.

Systems Review...

The Human Knot Teamwork Challenge...

Gray Area Timeline Mapping...

Order in the Court!

Today we finished up our Courtroom presentations and got to participate as lawyers in an online mock trial.  The students became more familiar with terminology, saw the courtroom players in action, and got to use their own reasoning to present evidence to the jury and question witnesses.

The defense team making their case.

The counsel for the plaintiff deliberating. 

In math, 3rd graders took an assessment of skills from our first section of our data unit and second graders continued looking at collecting data and finding the typical rate from a set of numbers.  They also organized their data on a line plot and described it terms of median, mode, and range.