This week we are having our last two water quality field trips! Tuesday, April 24, all 6th graders will go tree planting along Chimacum Creek with the North Olympic Salmon Coalition (NOSC). NOSC is paying for our busses so that our kids can provide a service for Chimacum Creek by helping restore its natural habitat for salmon. Native vegetation will replace the canary grass that has taken over and provides no shade for young fry.
Then on Wednesday, April 25, Ms. Langston’s class will go on their Hood Canal field trip to test the final two sites! When we return we only have a few more tests to run on Chimacum Creek and we’re done testing. Phase one of this project has included taking notes out of the textbook to learn about drinking water and fresh water pollution as well as learning how to use the equipment and conduct the water quality tests on Chimacum Creek and the Hood Canal. Phase two includes having teams learn what their tests actually mean so they can determine what their results mean. Phase two will end as teams teach what they’ve learned to their classes. These field trips and much of the equipment we use has been funded by my Learn and Serve America grant and partially from my Target Field trip grant.
Phase three is where teams design and create their own websites to share what they’ve learned. See our Water Quality website for more information. I am also planning our own Hood Canal Youth Summit where teams from each class will share their data with the other classes. This will be fun and informative! I was thinking that we could do this at HJ Carroll park.
In 7th grade there has been a change in our field trip date, we will have our 7th grade Boat Haven field trip on Tuesday, May 15. Information and trip permission slips will be sent home soon. Please read the letter carefully because we will need to collect all permission slips and money by May 4 so that the week before we go on the trip we can get an accurate count to the Boat Haven people. This field trip is funded in part by my Target Field trip grant. My science class is on the final phase of their Earth Movement project. They are almost ready to design and create websites to share what they’ve learned.
In my 7/8 Latin Exploration class students are doing a great job of learning Latin. We are also doing a few webquests to learn more about ancient Rome.
