February Late Start Lounge

Today we talked about tracking. The students were able to test their observations skills in the classroom with two game that you can play at home. First, they had a minute to look around the room and then closed their eyes. I asked them questions about the room and they answered by raising their arms to vote on list of answers. We also played an observation/memorization game with plastic farm animals. You can play this at dinner by having one person close their eyes while everyone else remove one object from the table. The object is to list what is missing.

Outside we practiced different tracking techniques. Ask your child to demonstrate the fox walk, weasel walk, scatter vision (good for looking for motion), and the benefits of using both peripheral vision and looking side to side (the playground/fabric game). We also worked on telling stories through tracks. The students had a great time drawing animals tracks on the playground with chalk. Here is a pdf of the animals tracks that we used if you would like to try this at home:

Animals Tracks

Late Start Lounge Photos

Update on Rieke's Green Team

Check out what the Green Team has been busy with this year!

or view the individial slides here

Styrofoam Recycling Drive

The Maplewood and Rieke Green Teams collected 40 cubic yards of styrofoam in 3 hours on Sunday! Big thanks to our volunteers - the students loved smashing the styrofoam to fit it into the bin.

Styrofoam drive photos

January EcoThink Club meeting

Our first EcoThink Late Start Lounge will be Wednesday January 18th. These sessions are designed for students K-5 who are interested in environmental topics. The theme of our first session will be Growing Up Wild. We will be learning about local wild animals and ways to sharpen your senses to track these creatures. The students will them be able to test their new skills in observation games in the classroom and around the school playground and by creating their own animal tracks to tell a story.

EcoThink is evolving again!

If your child is interested in environmental topics consider joining us at the EcoThink Late Start Lounge starting Jan. 2012! It will be an hour long session/hike before school on late start days. Please contact jamie.repasky@gmail.com for more information.

Session 6 - Back to Stephen's Creek

We hiked down to Stephen's Creek and the students were able to test their field science skills by conducting a transect of the park with PVC quadrants. They used a symbol key to document what types of plants were in their squares and even came up with a few new codes to describe different plants and objects. It was interested to see how much has changed since our last visit five weeks ago. We also reviewed 'KWL' - what I KNOW, what I WANT to know, and what I LEARNED before headed back to school. Great job guys!

Here are the class photos for weeks 3 to 6 including creating the mason bee nests, native plant observations, forestry reward relay, erosion/raindrop game, and the final hike.

EcoThink pictures

Session 5 - Alien Plants in Portland

Today the students learned about ‘alien’ plants in Portland and how these plants can lead to monocultures in our woods and erosion problems. The four invasive plants we focused on were Himalayan Blackberry, English Ivy, Herb Robert/‘Stinky Bob’, and Garlic Mustard. The students had some great questions about how to get rid of these plants and were excited to hear that there are ‘ivy pull parties’ at Tryon Creek (the next Stewardship Saturday Ivy Pull is November 12th from 9am-12pm).

The students also played the erosion game ‘Just Passing Through’ where each team got to be raindrops, plants, or stones on the slope near the school. The raindrops had to work hard to race down stream with out getting tagged by a plant. They even had a chance to play the pollution game (the raindrops tried to pick up chips that represented chemical or natural stream pollutants and ‘deliver’ them to the river with out being tagged by a plant) before we were hit with real raindrops!

This last Saturday we had a wonderful tour and hike at Hopkins Demonstration Forest. The students were able to help measure trees, count pine needles on different types of conifers, and hand drill a hole into a tall fir to tell the age and how fast it was growing.

Photos from Hopkins Demonstration Forest and Tryon Creek Hike

If you are interested in learning more about sustainable forestry, they offer Community Forestry Days on the 2nd Saturday of each month where you can be part of the action in the forest.