Look what I saw on my way to WCS today!

Classes from the Blue Valley Elementary’s Schools come out on field trips the WCS everyday. It is quite a experience for me because there really in an importance of teaching today’s youth about the environment. The kids really benefit from this because they come to understand by examples that taking care of the earth is their job. There are different lessons for every grade that  involves walking around of the property and getting hands on learning. The students always have so much fun and really like being a help to their learning.

So excited to almost be done with my plant and leaf pressings! They all are turning out really great and neat. Hopefully, I’ll be done with them soon for everyone to see!

Today I went out to test the same by the blue river. I thought it was necessary to because a big rain that is predicted to happen tomorrow and Thursday. This way later I can compare the quality before rain and after rain.

My collection of plants and leaves for my Barium are going quite well. The season of hot and humid weather is going to an end and I feel confident in the number of things I have got. Hopefully there’s a couple more nice days out so I can go look for things I missed to get out on the property.

The 3rd grade lesson is about trees. This is my favorite lesson so far because the kids get so engage and excited about it. When we go out to our study place, the kids sit down. We teach them about how the tree lives/survives in nature and the different parts of the tree. Once they learn the functions\parts of the tree, we make a class tree. Every person has and part and does it’s own action to represent each part of the tree. I really think this is a great way of teaching kids because they get a visual example of what’s going on in order for a tree to survive.

Yesterday I went out to do my second water quality testing in the Blue River. In a week’s change, I’ve notice the turbidity due to leaves falling of the trees in time for fall. Also, the dissolved oxygen in the water has increased. Hopefully, next week I’ll start testing both sites!

For most of this week Mr. Spake has let me observe his teaching. The lesson we are currently teaching to our second graders is about how the plant works. They first figure out, depending on their card, if they’re a root, steam, leaves, or a flower. After that we go outside and make a class flower. The kids into a formation of a flower and pass eggs that represent water up the stem. It’s really awesome to see how kids learn and interact with these fun activities that they actually participate in. The next part of their trip is to go find root, steams, and leaves. When they find those they make a poster like example and explain which part of the plant does.

Today, I started my own water collecting data for KSU. The water stream I did today was from the Blue River behind the WCS property. I grabbed my supplies, data sheets, and kit at the beginning of the hour to start testing. The kind of data I collect is the turbidity, nitrogen, pH, dissolved oxygen, and phosphorus. Everything has its own different procedure, which keeps it entertaining to do.