Forestry with Winn Elementary (23 & 24 May 2018)

Last week I spent two days (Wednesday 23 May & Thursday 24 May 2018) working with students from Winn Elementary at Audubon Woods Preserve.  On Wednesday the Third and Forth Grade classrooms each spent half a day at the preserve.  On Thursday the Fifth Grade class spent the entire day (minus a break for lunch back at the school) in the woods.

The students were doing a variety of activities related to forestry and forest ecology.  Activities included measurement of tree diameter, using a compass and measuring tape to map trees in 1/10th acre plots, estimating the number of leaves on the forest floor, estimating the weight of all the leaves, measuring canopy cover, identifying and sketching leaves; and sketching the layers in the forest.

This might seem like a lot of work, but this is not the first time these students have visited Audubon Woods.  Third Grade students visited once last fall, and the other two grades have visited at least once a year since they were in Third Grade.  By now the Fifth Graders are quite familiar with the preserve and the activities they are being asked to accomplish.  The lower grades have less time available on site and less experience so they correspondingly do less work.

Here are a few images of the students hard at work as well as some nature photos from the two days.

Wednesday 23 May 2018

The compass is an important forestry tool

Mapping the location and size of trees

More Food Chain Madness!

Yesterday, I talked about food chains and the different levels that organisms occupy in them.  Today I thought I would share a drawing that I made to illustrate the concepts.  This was drawing was done in a Fifth Grade classroom and projected on the SMART Board as I drew it.  Students always seem amazed (and amused) when I draw things - especially little touches like grumpy mushrooms and happy sunflowers.  No one said that learning can't be both serious and fun...

Science outside the classroom

The 2016-17 School Year has started and I am fully immersed in programs.  I currently have more than 400 programs scheduled this year, and am still scheduling a few programs here and there.  Most of these programs are held in the classroom, but when the weather is nice during the first few weeks of the school year, and again during the last few weeks of the school year, I am able schedule many outdoor programs.

Last Thursday (22 September), two classrooms of sixth grade students from Fancher Elementary met me at Mill Pond Park to learn about botany.  I have worked with most of these students before - some of them have seen me every year since third grade.  After talking about how plants can be classified based on physical characteristics (such as leaf type and arrangement), and being given some identification sheets, the students were turned loose with the mission to draw and describe two wildflowers and the leaves of two different trees.

Here are a few photographs of the students and their work.

An identification sheet I gave the students

The backside of the ID sheet

 

Getting outside is always better than sitting in the classroom.

Drawing a maple leaf from life

 

Very detailed drawings

 

Coloring and labeling

Another student's worksheet

Sixth grade students color and label their drawings

Pointing out the characteristics of a wildflower

Filling out a worksheet

Fancher students working along a retaining wall at Mill Pond Park

This week, I met with third grade students at Vowles elementary to do a similar activity - Vowles elementary has its own small woodlot adjacent to the school grounds.  This time the students were only asked to draw and describe the leaves from four trees (no wildflowers).  As an additional activity, they also had to determine the diameter of several living tree.

Last week, in the classroom we had classified preserved leaves and measure the diameter of sections of tree trunks (also called tree cookies - mine are more like full sized pies than cookies).  Now the students learned how to measure the circumference of the tree and divide that by pi (3.14) to determine the diameter.  They were also tasked with removing any trash that they found in the woods (but not broken glass).

I didn't take nearly as many pictures of the 3rd graders as I did of the the sixth graders.  The younger students required a lot more help and guidance.  In fact, I only managed to get my camera out for one of three classes - a fourth class was cancelled due to the weather.

A group multitasking - students measure the circumference and pick up trash at the same time

Calculating the diameter

A student's worksheet

Students hard at work

Students search for leaves to identify and draw

Vowles Elementary teacher Johanna Raymond works with a group of her students

Drawings from students

Over the past seven years I have been the recipient of dozens of drawings from students.  Usually the drawings were made while I was teaching a class.  Less commonly, a student has saved something for me since the last time I visited their classroom.  Normally they have something to do with the lesson I am presenting, but not always. 

Earlier this week I received my first one of this school year.

The subject of the drawing (and the presentation I was giving) - Trees

For those of you not fluent in the "Beginning of Third Grade" written language, here is the translation.

                               Left of the trunk                            Right of the Trunk
                               oxygen                                             trunk
                               paper                                                leaves
                               sugar                                                roots
                               sunlight
                               carbon
                               dioxide.
                               water
                               can be
                               little
                               big
                               small             

Anatomy of an Axe

Lately, many of the school programs that I have been giving have been about the history of logging in Michigan.  During this program I show students many of the tools that were traditionally used in logging, especially those tools used in the late 1800's when Michigan could rightly be called the "logging capital of the world".

One of the things that I teach students during this presentation is the anatomy of an axe.  Specifically, I teach them the anatomy of a single-bit, Michigan Pattern felling axe.  In addition to pointing out the parts on a real axe, last week I decided to draw up a diagram to give the students.  I also included small drawings of two other axes that I show to students - a double-bit axe and a hewing axe.

Anatomy of a single-bit Michigan Pattern axe

For more information on axes and saws, check out this post from August 2013.

Free Insect Worksheets

I do a lot of different programs with students.  I always try to have something that they take home after the program.  This often takes the form of a worksheet that they complete as part of a hands-on activity.  I try to not have this be a worksheet for the sake of doing a worksheet, but rather as part of a learning experience that they can take home and share with their parents.  Because my programs are specific to the Mid-Michigan area, I find that pre-made worksheets rarely work for what I want to talk about.  So I end up creating my own.  This worksheet is one that I created this morning to go along with a presentation on insects to Third Grade students.   If these are something that you can use, please feel free to take them.

Forest Ecology with students from Winn Elementary

Last week I met students from Winn Elementary at the Florence Maxwell Audubon Woods Preserve.  This 40 acre property owned and maintained by the Chippewa Watershed Conservancy.  The Florence Maxwell preserve is covered with a mature American Beech/Sugar Maple Forest on its upper regions and changes to a Floodplain Forest along the Chippewa River.

Over the course of the school year the 3rd - 5th grade students at Winn Elementary have participated in our Environmental Education Program and have learned about various Michigan habitat types and the species of plants and animals that can be found in those habitats.  This field trip is an opportunity to tie together many of those lessons in a field environment.

Each of the three classrooms was on site for approximately one hour and had a list of tasks that they were supposed to accomplish.  The classes were broken down into small groups.  Each group was given materials that included clipboards, calculators, tape measures, and colored pencils.  Each student received a notebook of activities to complete.  This was not only an exercise in woodland ecology, but also in cooperation.  Those groups that worked well together were able to accomplish much more than those groups that struggled to cooperate.

The first activity that students were expected to complete was to determine the Diameter Breast Height (DBH) of five trees around a given point.  DBH has traditionally been measured in the United States at 4.5 feet above ground level.  Students were given a standard tape measure to find both the distance from the central point (which could be used to determine density of trees per area) and the circumference of the tree. 
Once they found the circumference, they could then divide by pi (3.14) to find the diameter.

This was the first activity assigned to the students and the only one that required them to stay in one spot for an extended time.  The other activities were designed to get the students to explore the woods.  Before the students arrived I used marker flags to identify a number of different species of wildflowers and other native plants.  They were expected to draw and record the height of at least one of these plants.  They could also identify and draw a leaf, either on the ground or growing on a tree.  Another page in their notebook was for recording living and non-living things that they found in the forest.  There were also pages in their notebook for recording any animals that they saw or signs that pointed toward their presence.  Finally the students had several blank pages for drawing or recording notes about what they found.

False morel mushroom

Section of Eastern Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis)

Students removing tire found in the woods - students cleaned up two tires and filled a large garbage bag with trash

Student drawings

Leaf-footed Bug

Large-Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum)

Green Stink Bug

Eastern Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis)

So what did the students find in the woods? Animals included snakes, frogs, salamanders, birds, insects, and spiders.  Two groups of students reported seeing a striped skunk in a hollow stump.  Wildflowers included Large-flowered Trillium, Downy Yellow Violet, Wood Anemone, Broad-leafed Toothwort, Periwinkle, Skunk Cabbage, Jack-in-the-pulpit, and more.  They also found and removed two old automotive tires from the woods and filled a large garbage bag with trash.

Paper and Pencil

Most of us are artists at a young age.  We love to take pencils, crayons, and markers to paper when we are young, creating "masterpieces" that we give to anyone who will take them.  Every refrigerator in a house with small children is an art gallery.  As we get older, many of us draw less and less.  We decide that we don't like to draw, that we aren't any good at it, that we don't have the time, or that there are better ways of recording information.  Some of us stop drawing altogether. In this age where every person has a camera in their pocket, or on their cellphone, or strapped to their head, what is the point of using a pencil and paper to draw anything anymore?