Riverwatch, Part Three: The Saga Continues...

Part of our group at the river this fall.

We started out our unit this fall teaching about the Mississippi River and its tributaries. Next,  we had our students color and label a map of the Saline watershed, which is, of course, a series of streams and creeks that empty into the Saline.  We took a field trip to Parkinson Lab at SIU, which has a river model in the basement,  to learn about what rivers do.  Then we taught the students how to do physical, chemical, and biological surveys in class and a group of students and parents went to the river after school.

Isn't it funny how, when you do something new, at first it seems all important and exciting but, after you've done it for awhile, it becomes routine: just something you do (kinda like driving!)?  That's kind of what our Saline River Project has become: part of my class routine.  My fellow teacher, Miss Ozment, and I have taught our students about water quality and taken them to the river to test the water three times now.  The first time, I did most of the testing and allowed the students to help.  The most recent time, the students and their parents did most of the measuring, kicking up macro invertebrates, and chemical testing, and we supervised and helped.  Yes, they're fourth graders being silly and having a good time in the water. But - they are also fourth graders doing physical, chemical, and biological surveys of our local river while being silly and having fun!  They can do it!

We decided to find out if people in our area know the name of the main river in our county and its location, so I typed up a survey with a map of our county and various questions about the river: What is its name? Mark the location on the map. Rate the water quality 1-5. Have you ever seen a sign? Do you think there should be a sign? Why?  The students took it home and surveyed  their friends and neighbors, as well as students and staff here at school. After we tallied the results and found percentages, we found that 69% of those surveyed do not know the river's name (And I must admit that these results are skewed, because most of the students who knew the name were involved or at least knew about the project last year!)

Next, I taught my kiddos how to write persuasive letters.  We had already worked on persuasive essays, so it was a natural next step.  They could choose to write their  letter to the governor, our state representative, our state senator, or either the director of the IDNR or IDOT. Each of the above received at least one letter (in cute fourth grade handwriting! Love it!) about the project and results of the survey. Students gave three reasons why the river should have a sign and asked for help in procuring that sign for the Saline River.  (Who could resist that?)  I also wrote a letter to each recipient and included pictures of the kids at the river.

So, last Friday, I received a phone call from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Apparently, the people that my students had written have gotten in touch with each other to see about getting a sign for the Saline River. Bottom line: he said that the DNR could make a sign and put it up!  Success! The students are so happy!  I am so proud of them!  Hopefully, this will help them see that they can accomplish big things, even if they are small!  I can't wait to post a picture of our Saline River sign!

Turn Over A New Leaf!

Fall
By Jack Prelutsky

The leaves are yellow, red and brown,
A shower sprinkles softly down
And the air is fragrant, crisp and cool,
And once again, I'm stuck in school.

Every year when the nights start getting cool and leaves begin to turn, I start thinking about leaf collections.  I walk around my neighborhood with Maggie, my 12-year-old beagle, and collect leaves from all of the neighborhood trees.  The next day I bring them to class and teach my kids some leaf basics, like simple and compound, needleleaf (evergreen) and broadleaf (deciduous), and we make rubbings.  This is an old fashioned activity that kids don't get to do nowadays and they love it!  They think it's magic when the shape of a leaf appears through the paper!  

Fall is a great time to learn about trees and the Illinois DNR has published a great little workbook called Illinois Trees.  I have used it with my fourth graders for about ten years now.  I teach them some leaf identifiers, like different edges, pointed and rounded lobes, and even and asymmetrical bases. Then students use a dichotomous key to identify 15 leaves from Illinois trees.  The first time I tried the dichotomous key with 9-year-olds, I thought it would be way too hard for them.  I was so wrong.  Most of the students caught on quickly and had all the leaves identified before the end of the period.  Since then, my classes have all done just as well.  Once in awhile someone will hit a snag, but with a little help from me or a classmate, will quickly get it figured out. 

After they finish with the Leaf Identification booklet, I tell students that we're going to do a leaf collection.  They love the idea.  I have them collect ten leaves, identify, and classify them.  They tape them into a simple booklet that we make in class and we use the leaf rubbings for the cover.  Cute, simple, and easy! You could have them collect any number of leaves, but ten is enough for me.  I mostly want them to get out in the backyard and do some science!

Sometimes there is a leaf that we have a hard time identifying.  There is a great iPad ap called Leaf Snap that lets you take a picture of a leaf and will give you several options to choose from. There are also several leaf identification websites.  If you're an Illinois teacher, the DNR has beautiful leaf posters that students can use to identify their leaves.  And, you can always use a good, old-fashioned book!

I hope next fall you'll have your kiddos give leaf collecting a try!

What is Your Problem?

This post fits more in the "Other Mysteries..." category.  I'm going to tell you about a teaching strategy called Problem Based Learning.  I hope you will give it a try!

Problem Based Learning (PBL) is a great way to motivate and engage your kiddos.  First, divide them into groups and give them a multi-faceted (OK-messy) problem that doesn't have just one answer.  This is called "Meeting the Problem", which is the first step.  Next, students brainstorm what they know about the subject and what they need to know in order to solve the problem (Step 2 -" Know/Need to Know"). Then they "Define the Problem" (Step 3): rephrase it or state it in their own words.   Next they "Gather Information" (Step 4) to help them solve the problem.  This can be done by internet research, field trips, personal interviews, etc.  They then propose a solution ("Solve the Problem" - Step 5), explain their reasoning (why they chose that solution) and list pros and cons.  Finally, the class votes for the best solution.

Last spring, I gave my class a problem stating that beavers were moving in to our area and farmers were afraid that they would cause problems for them.  The kids had to find out what kind of problems the beavers might cause and what could be done about it. We took a field trip and looked for beaver signs.  We had a speaker from SIU come to teach them general beaver information.  The kids searched the web for information and possible solutions.  They were on task and motivated.  Finally, they shared their solutions:  from painting the trees with hot sauce to putting fencing around the trees to planting trees that the beavers don't like so that they would move somewhere else.  One group proposed building a beaver dome, catching all the beavers in the area, and charging admission to come view the beavers.  That group was so proud of themselves for thinking out of the box that I let them keep it as their solution.  After all, they're nine years old!  They were really disappointed that the beaver dome wasn't chosen as the best solution!

A PBL unit could last from a week to a month or longer, depending on how engaged your students are and how much time you have.  Solutions could be presented with posters (my pick) or projects from web pages to pamphlets to mock TV or radio shows.  Let them be creative!

Possible Problems:
The flowers in the principal's garden aren't growing well.  What could be wrong and what can she do to help them grow?

Kids in our school keep getting sick!  Why and what can be done about it? 

In the cafeteria, a large amount of food is thrown away.  Why and how can we change this?

The bee population in America is shrinking.  Why are bees important and why is this happening?  What can we do about it?

You get the idea.  The beauty and importance of PBL is the process that the kids go through and the learning and thinking that takes place, NOT the solution.  In this case, the means is much more important than the end! 

Star Light, Star Bright

Twinkle, twinkle, little star...How I wonder what you are!  For so many generations, people used the night sky as a calendar, to guide their way as they traveled, or to create stories to entertain themselves and others.  Some even used it to predict the future.  It was an integral part of their lives.  In our society, knowledge of the moon, stars, planets, and constellations is a lost art. I'm trying to bring back a bit of that lost art here in Harrisburg with my fourth graders.

Fall is a great time to study the moon, stars, and solar system. It starts getting dark earlier and is still warm enough to spend some time outside in the evening.  Students just have to look up to see the beautiful, immense night sky, full of stars (and the moon) right out there in the backyard! A great opportunity for some backyard science!

Some time ago, I placed glow-in-the-dark stars on my light panels in the shape of constellations. So, every time we turn off the lights in the classroom, the kids can see Leo, Orion, the Big Dipper, Sagittarius, Cassiopeia, and other constellations.  My class, of course notices these on day one.  I explain what  constellations are and how to connect the dots to see the shapes.  They usually conclude that the ancients had vivid imaginations to make a man or a flying horse out of those shapes!  I turn off the light and tell the stories, which I have kid-ified over the years.  Then I give them a star map and teach them how to use it.  You can find monthly star maps at www.skymaps.com. Sometimes at this point we borrow a class set of iPads and explore the Night Sky app. Their assignment is then to try to find the constellations at night and circle on the map the ones they find. The next day I have "constellation club" posters all around the room for students to sign if they found a certain constellation (Cassiopeia Club, Big Dipper Club, etc).  I usually get a note or two from parents thanking me for a great family evening!  From time to time, during the year I send home monthly constellation maps just for fun or extra credit.  When my daughters were teenagers, they used to tell me that I was turning all my students into geeks.  I prefer to think I'm turning them into astrophysicists!

We also make a book of moon phases (If you're into Pinterest, there's a fun idea you can try that uses Oreo cookies to model the phases of the moon.) and I assign moon calendars. Students observe the moon each night for a month and draw and  label it.   Students who return their moon calendars receive extra credit and Moon Pies - or Starburst - or Milky Ways. Be sure you check out moonrise and set times on this site www.timeanddate.com before you assign the calendar.  Sometimes the moon isn't visible until the wee hours of the morning!

Over the years, I have done several other astronomy activities with my students that you might like to try.  If you have access to a Star Lab portable planetarium or are close enough to a planetarium for a field trip, that is great!  There are also local amateur astronomy clubs that love to introduce kids to the stars and planets by doing star parties.  There is nothing like looking in a telescope and seeing Saturn's rings or Jupiter's moons!

Riverwatch, Part Two: Physical Survey

Last fall, my students and I did our first physical survey of the Saline River.  I decided to do it on a Thursday after school, so I sent a note describing the purpose of the trip to parents, along with a map.  I asked them to bring their child to the river and stay with us to supervise.  Eight dads and one mom showed up with their children, so we had a group of 18, plus me.  Perfect size and there was a one-to-one adult to fourth grader match!  The water wasn't very deep, so students just wore their rain boots.  Most of them ended up getting their boots full of water, though.  I was the first one to get a bootful! The kids loved that!

The first step was filling out a site sketch data sheet.  This included stream name, nearest town, date, time, county, watershed, latitude & longitude, and number of participants.  Students each sketched the  site.  Then they observed the water to determine turbidity (how clear or cloudy it was) and odor.  They checked the canopy cover, stream bank vegetation, and stream substrate composition.  That was all we could do on the bank.  Next step: get into the water!

Before we got started, I appointed one student to be the videographer.  Using an iPad, he did a great job of recording it all.  We also now have the special bonus of his running commentary on the whole process.  Hilarious!  The first step was measuring the width of the river.  Since I wasn't sure how deep it would be in the middle, I waded across and one of the kids held the measuring tape.  Then we measured the depth in 3 places and calculated the average.  Stream flow was next.  We marked out a lane ten feet long and 5 feet wide with orange flags.  We then floated a ball down the lane, timed it, and calculated and recorded the average velocity.

Before we left, we needed to get some macroinvertebrates for the biological survey.  Different types of macroinvertebrates are a factor in determining water quality.  So, the kids took turns kicking water and substrate into a kick net and filling a bucket with our samples.  The next day, after I showed our video to the students who were unable to come, we got out hand lenses and I borrowed the nurse's lice light to see what, if any macroinvertebrates we had captured.  Unfortunately, we didn't find many.  Hopefully we'll get more next time!

Riverwatch

During our Noyce research project in the Cache River area last summer, a fellow teacher, Jane Sechrest, and I started wondering about our local river, here in Harrisburg - the Saline River. As you drive through Southern Illinois, you notice that almost every stream or creek has a sign.  But there's not one for the Saline River.  We knew there was a river and that our county was named after it, but we weren't sure where it was.  That made us wonder if our students, or even the residents of Saline County, knew where it was.  Of course, we found it.  Our students can walk to it from the school.  So, we decided to become river watchers.   Last September, another fourth grade teacher, Lisa Ozment,  and I participated in a workshop called Stream Discovery  which was provided by The National Great Rivers Research and Education Center (www.ngrrec.org), located in Godfrey, IL - right on the Mississippi River.  This workshop trains teachers to lead students to monitor local streams and rivers and then report findings in a national database.

First, our classes took a field trip to the  river, where students observed and sketched the area.  They listed the many things they saw:  a great blue heron wading in the water, an eagle flying over; trees, shrubs and other vegetation; as well as tires and junk in the river.  Then, we had experts from SIU, our local university, speak to our classes about the importance of rivers.  They talked about how people use rivers, ways water gets polluted, invasive species, and the importance of clean water.  Of course the kids thought they were awesome! Special speakers are just, you know - special!

 The students decided we should find out if the Saline River was polluted.  So, the next week we decided to do chemical tests and see just what was in our water.  We did our fall chemical survey. I taught the students about all the chemicals that could be in water and what they would mean.  Basically, they just learned the names of compounds (phosphate, coliform, nitrate...) and whether or not it was desirable for them to be in the water. The next day, I made a quick trip to the river at lunch and got some water samples. We used a low cost water monitoring kit made by LaMotte (www.lamotte.com) to test for pH, turbidity, and several chemicals.  The kids loved this because it was like magic - the water changes color!  They put water and different tablets in test tubes, shook them for a period of time, and compared the color to a chart to determine the level/ presence of the chemical.  We found out that the quality of water in the Saline River was pretty good! We're going to do the winter chemical survey next week (while it's technically still winter) and compare our results.

There is so much to the Saline River project that it will take a few posts for me to describe it all.  So,  I'll tell you about the physical and biological surveys of the river that we did, and hopefully post a video.  Then I'll talk about possible projects for the future - from a "man-on-the-street" survey to find out just who knows where the Saline River is - to getting a sign - to maybe organizing a clean up day.  This is a cool project, but the most important part is how engaged my students were and still are.  Some of them feel sorry for our poor river that doesn't even have a sign - and want to do something about it! They can't wait to do the next surveys.  They are interested in their environment and they feel like they are scientists doing important work.  Which is true: they are.

Bird Basics

I'll start today with a personal note:  In the last month, I became a grandma!  After having been married and childless for 6 and 8 years, both my daughters decided to start a family.  At the same time! They have always liked to do things together! My youngest daughter gave birth to our first grandson, Isaac, on January 13. Three weeks and a day later, her older sister became a first-time mom to Matthew.  So, for the last month, I've spent more time at my daughter's homes, holding precious grandsons, than I have in my classroom. 

So, now I'm back home, all caught up with the grading and planning and ready to get back to teaching... and there is no school!  Snow Day! I'll take this chance to do a little catching up! 

Birds are everywhere, especially the backyard!  We, and our students, are so used to seeing them that we don't even notice them most of the time.  But, since they are right outside our windows, teachers have an opportunity to open students'  eyes and use birds to teach many science concepts.  Habitats, adaptations, migration, and camouflage are just a few.  I am also a big believer that people will value what they know and experience, so studying birds can lead to students who love

birds and are interested in conservation and motivated to care for their environment.  

Last summer, I attended a great (Inexpensive! I think it was $20) workshop called "Flying Wild" that is a program of the Council for Environmental Education (councilforee.org).  I used many activities from the resource guide that my students loved, from "Fill the Bill,"  in which students use different implements (tweezers, tongs, a straw...) to decide which bird's beak each represents, to "The Great Migration Game,"which is like a "choose your own adventure" life-sized board game. There is information for planning a Bird Festival and lots of online resources for birding and bird education.  If Flying Wild comes to your area, it is well worth your time to attend!

If you live in Illinois, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (dnr.illinois.gov) has many great free teaching resources for use by Illinois teachers:  posters, workbooks, CDs, and trading cards of birds, animals, rocks and minerals, and many other topics.  They also have trunks full of items that teachers can borrow.  The bird trunk is full of bird field guides, skull models, books, CDs, and a bird DVD.  It even has stuffed birds that make their sounds when you squeeze them.  I used these items during our bird unit.  Needless to say, the students loved them.

I finished off our bird unit by giving my students a winter bird checklist, with pictures of birds that spend the winter in Southern Illinois.  I'll try to include that so you can see it.  Students were to choose one day to look for the 6 winter birds and tally all that they saw.  Then they were to report their findings on ebird.org, which is one of several national databases that keep track of birds in the U.S.  I tell them that they are citizen scientists and this is important work they're doing. I also give extra credit!  My next project will be a bird feeding area on the playground.  I'm not sure if I'll get to that this year or next, though!

I'm all for using available materials to get kids excited about science and birds are certainly that - available!  

Weather Center

An easy "backyard" science project is to set up a simple weather center on the playground.  I made mine in a few hours from scrap wood I found in the garage.  On it is an anemometer, thermometer, rain gauge, and wind sock.  I also have a homemade barometer in my classroom.  Each day, my student weather reporter checks the temperature, wind speed and direction, precipitation, barometer, and type of clouds.  (And, sometimes gets locked out and has to knock on the window to be let back inside! Love  fourth graders!) They then give a weather report and record their data on a spreadsheet on the computer.  Keeping a spreadsheet allows us to make graphs and compare information from week to week, month to month, or even season to season.

As a result of paying attention to, and checking and recording the weather each day, my students are not only learning the names and purposes of weather instruments and types of clouds, but also developing some basic knowledge of weather forecasting.  I'm attaching a picture of my weather station.  You can see that it's not really a big deal, but a simple tool that can result in big learning (in the backyard!).