Around here, April showers don’t just bring flowers, they bring scientists!
On April 3, Dr. Elizabeth Goodman visited Ms. Baker’s class at Beye. Dr. Goodman spoke with students about geology and passed around samples of different types of rocks, such as obsidian and basalt. She talked about how these rocks might have been used in ancient civilizations for art, tools, and functional objects.
On April 12, Longfellow third graders had a visit to their classroom by Adam Kessel, Naturalist at Trailside Nature Center. Students learned about invasive plant species, most notably Buckthorn, and then took and passed a quiz to become Citizen Scientists. They did a walk of the schoolyard and looked for invasive species to practice their new knowledge and also practiced recording findings on an iPad using university GIS software. Students went on a field trip to Trailside where they hiked the trails to find and record Buckthorn – and also found and invasive Honeysuckle – using the GIS on the ipads, they practiced restoration by cutting down Buckthorn near the Nature Center, they learned about the animals that are cared for and live at Trailside, and they also had an opportunity to play in the nature play space.
On April 17, Ben Stark visited students at Beye and demonstrated his “can crusher.” Students saw the dramatic effects of temperature and air pressure on an aluminum can, while learning about the different states of water.
On April 18, students at Hatch worked with Dr. Weber. Students learned how to use the microscope and swapped slides to look at all the cool designs of the cell tissue under the scopes. They asked lots of questions, wanted to know which slides were tumors and diseases, and learned about what they were looking at – like the dots were actually nuclei of cells.
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