Lets Clean Up The Park!

Today, the Urban Naturalists decided to clean up their local park! After discussing the positive and negative impacts humans can have on the environment, we decided to take matters into our own hands.

After picking up trash, we decided to play a game called Oh Deer where we compared deer population and resource availability.

Finally, we checked out our sit spots to see if there are any differences since our last visit.

We played a quick game of Ultimate Rocks, Paper, Scissors
and ended up between these two Urban Naturalists

Group Clean Up Shot! Team Urban Naturalist! 

Grabbing some trash!

Mary is working hard!

Siblings working hard! 

Kash making a dent in cleaning up trash
in the pond 

Sibling love! 

We found a tiny earthworm! 

Emeril pointing out the Poison Ivy he
ALMOST touched! Remember,
"Hairy Rope: Don't be a Dope"! Don't
touch hairy vines on trees - it's poison ivy!

Nico noticed some geese flying overhead!

Aminah checks out some new buds on a tree

Apparently the key to observing best in the
forest includes some excellent dance moves! 

Human Impact: The Pros and Cons

The Urban Naturalists considered the affects of human impact on the environment. We discussed what humans do that has a positive impact on the environment, such as wasting less, putting bird feeders out, shutting lights off when leaving a room and picking up after our dogs. We also discussed negative impacts humans participate in, such as habitat destruction and pollution.

We took a hike outside around the school grounds and noted areas of positive and negative impact. We decided that the school had many areas of positive impact, such as providing bike racks to encourage people to ride bikes to work and putting bird feeders outside on the trees.

Finally, we considered the timelines of decomposition of our daily trash. We learned that a banana takes 2 to 3 weeks to break down while glass could take millions of years!

Katherine explains some positive and negative
impacts by humans upon the environment

Found some interesting scat outside of the school! 

Hmmm...which objects breaks down first

Can you believe diapers take 450 years
to break down? Our grandparents diapers
are still somewhere in the landfill!

Mapping Out a Treasure Hunt!

The Urban Naturalists learned the importance of mapping and general techniques to create an efficient map. We split our group into two groups and had each group hide a jar full of candy. The groups drew maps for the others to follow to find their candy. Both groups were successful!

We then established our personal "Sit Spots" at Blackstone Park. A Sit Spot is an area of land that each Urban Naturalist will check in on once a week. Each student found a spot in the woods that they would like to report on; explaining and recording the changes throughout the session.

Group 1 Map 

Group 2 Map

It was a beautiful winter day at Blackstone Park!

Some of us had a rough time on the slippery terrain!

One Urban Naturalist drawing out one of
our landmarks during the map making

X marks the spot!

A well-hidden treasure under that twisty log

Group 2 found some excellent squirrel tracks!

VICTORY! The candy has been found!

Making some observations about our new Sit Spots

Watersheds and Pollution Clean Ups

Today, the Urban Naturalists explored the concept of watersheds. A watershed, as defined by the US EPA, is an "area of land where all of the water that is under it or drains off of it goes to the same place." We talked about how throwing chemicals or using fertilizers in our gardens affects the bodies of water that may not always be right in our backyard. We tested out this idea by creating our very own watershed areas in the classroom. we drew houses and gardens and even created a landfill and watched what happened when a rainstorm came. The urban naturalists noted that, though the landfills they created were far apart from the lakes, gravity pulled the rainwater all the way down into the lakes, polluting the water.

Next, we considered what would happen to the lakes if they became polluted. We experimented with various ways to try to clean up oil out of buckets of water. We tested sponges, paper towels, gauze, cotton balls, face clothes, dryer lint, and spoons. We decided that the spoons and cotton balls worked best to remove the oil. We talked about the difficulties of oil spills and the importance of preventing pollution problems rather than constantly trying to clean them up. 

Testing out dryer lint to see if it picks up oil!

Finally, we had a very special presentation by two of our 8th grade Urban Naturalists who have spent many sessions over the past 3 years in this program. Kash and Emeril did research on Eastern Box Turtles and Spotted Turtles and gave a presentation to the fellow Urban Naturalists. 

Kash showing the Urban Naturalists the
parts of an Eastern Box Turtle's shell

Emeril letting the Urban Naturalists touch
the Spotted Turtle, Dottie!

Our excellent animal presenters today! Emeril and Kash!

Diversity in Nature

Today, the Urban Naturalists learned about the importance of diversity in nature. Then, we played a great game of Tweet Swat to learn our bird species by sight and then call. This turned into a very competitive activity as both teams battled to identify the bird first! Check out are video of the event!

We then played some animal diversity BINGO and learned some cool facts about some Rhode Island animals.

A Day In The Schoolyard

What week would be complete without a day of games outdoors in the schoolyard? We played some fun games that helped us explore the importance of Camouflage in nature as well as learning about hunting strategies of different animals. We took some goofy photos of our group today!