PBL and STREAMS Friday

Yes! We are finally getting our hands dirty in our outdoor science area.  Actually, we got more than our hands dirty. 😃  There was so much mud from the recent rain that we grew a couple of inches in height with the mud on our boots!

We had several tasks to accomplish outside.  The cleared hillside needed to have some silt fencing put up to prevent erosion, until we can get it replanted. The eighth graders managed to pound stakes in, and with the help of their teacher and Francisco, we got the soil packed at the bottom.

The rest of the class was occupied at the "shed" emptying the junk from inside, and searching to see if the building had footings supporting it.  Good news! There are footings. Bad news, there are some sill  plates that need to be replaced.  What better problem-based learning could we ask for! The students had fun and are excited to be actively making a difference on their outdoor learning lab!

Local person of fame visits

That's right! We had Nick Tomihama visit our classroom today. How exciting to see his work and hear firsthand how he makes his bows, arrows and arrowheads. He knows his stuff!

He even managed to show use how the geometry we had just studied that morning, is used in the making of arrowheads!  Yes! Practical, everyday use of math! Warms a teachers heart! Thanks Mr. Tomihama!

Nick took the students out to try their hand at throwing large darts with an atlatl. After some warm up shots, they were able to send those darts flying fifty yards or so.

  Check out Nick's YouTube channel- Nicholas Tomihama

Salmon delivery

Our salmon arrived today!  Columbia Springs Fish Hatchery delivers them to us twice a year.  The students had fun reviewing the life cycle, habitat and feeding habits of the Coho salmon.  There appear to be 15 of them, although it is hard to keep track as they move around so much.

Folks who walk through our halls love to stop and take notice of the newest inhabitants of Riverside Christian School.  We will release them in December.  This Salmon in the Classroom program enriches our ecosystem studies this quarter and makes the students more aware of taking care of the river across the street from the school.

STREAMS COMING TO LIFE

So....our studies this year are summarized in the acronym STREAMS:  Science Technology Religion, Engineering Art Math and Service.  This week a backhoe showed up to clear out more of the black berries out of our outdoor play area.

With the extra amount of rain, drainage has shown itself to be an issue out there and causing our neighbor some distress as well.  Something needed to be done to divert the extra water.  The men worked hard and forged a "path" for the spring water to flow, thus by-passing the neighbor's yards.  The good news....we appear to have a year round stream that must have been traveling in a mysterious direction.  We'll have to spend some more time observing and researching it's source.

Connecting with some experts seems to be in order too!  Could this be some place salmon use to come? There are many exciting options as well as challenges for our students to explore, brainstorm and solve.  We'll keep you posted!

Here's Lookin' at You!

It was a whole new world of micro size!  Mr. H came with his marvelous microscopes this week and demonstrated how they worked, how to take care of them and even let us try them out.  Mr. K even came to demonstrate and assist with the contrast microscope.

The students had collected samples from around our campus and their homes.  We had pond water, dead bugs, live bugs (mostly spiders!), and even saw a mosquito larvae (circulation and all!).

Students were able to witness that ecosystems exist even in a drop of water.  We could spend a whole month of days like this one!

Thanks Mr. H and Mr. K, for volunteering your time and thoughtful insight into the world of microscopes.  We loved it!

Riverbed find! Class pet?

Sure enough!  We were gathering samples from our river ecosystem, and found a friend.  The students are observing, researching and caring for this little guy.  We may get a chance to observe him up close and personal with our microscope day coming up.  Looking into the water he lives in will be interesting too.

So blessed to be able to walk to a river bank and explore the amazing things in nature that God has given us.

STEM Friday Measure Up

We went outside for our STEM Friday!  Our outdoor classroom play area is a "diamond in the rough" and has sooo much potential!

The students measured the area, marked where existing trees and bushes are and basically evaluated how much space we have to work with.  Next week we will draw up a "map" on graph paper to document that space.  From there, they can brainstorm different uses and layouts.

They found an apple tree!  With apples!  Samples were taken of course!