Footage from the Trail Camera! Incredible!

We have some great new footage from Mrs. Willmore and the Trail Camera! Learners...check your observations and see if you were correct.

Tuesday Night - Wednesday Classes

Wednesday Night - Thursday Classes:

Student Example!!

This is a video from one of our students re-creating the milk and food coloring example at home on his own!

Meadow track...new species

This was from a much smaller creature! We have some peanut butter left!

Great tracks today!

Great tracks today in our meadow box! Can you tell what they are?

Learners are excited to see great tracks!

Tracking Boxes for Thursday, August 29th...

Meadow Tracking Box

Baseline 

Bait was set at 2:00 p.m.

Well Tracking Box

Baseline

Bait was set at 2:00 p.m.

Demo Day!

NOTICE!!!! Weather permitting, we will be outside tomorrow! Baseline tracking box videos are below!

As we continue to explore the difference between observations and inferences, we spent today observing various demonstrations.

We also have our first of many daily updates from one of our students.

Below, are various versions of the demonstrations that we witnessed today in class. Each demonstration had various scientific elements as the cause. It was not our goal to come up with these solutions today, but to work through making inferences based on our current knowledge and our observations.

I would love for families to watch these demonstrations again and begin to help discover the underlying causes behind each.

On that note...I NEED EXPERTS!!! If anyone reading this would like to post an explanation of why each event happened, please add a comment to this post with your explanation or better yet, a link to a video explanation.

Here is a sample of our work today: (This is a YouTube playlist. You should be able to view all videos by scrolling through the list and clicking.)

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLr7OGOrOGxoQN3mcwyjbOVLBzFagIkarq

Tracking Box information...

We will be observing our tracking boxes on block days (Wed/Thurs) this week.

Below, you will find the "baseline" video for each box.

Meadow Tracking Box

Well Tracking Box

What made those tracks?

Hopefully everyone spent some time thinking about what could have made the tracks in the tracking boxes Tuesday and Wednesday night.

I was great to see that we had different creatures each night.

If you want to find good examples of tracks, ODNR has some good resources at:

http://ohiodnr.com/tabid/19449/default.aspx
http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Home/ExperienceWildlifeSubHomePage/kidspagesplaceholder/kidsforesthabtracks/tabid/6030/Default.aspx

Alderleaf Wilderness College also provides some good resources at:
http://www.wildernesscollege.com/identifying-animal-tracks.html

We have a lot of good pictures from both tracking boxes available through out shared Google Drive at:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B07Ii08sIK8HemVLYlhaeG5ybDg&usp=sharing


You can view actual footage from Tuesday night at the Well Tracking Box!

Here is the link to the culprit.

http://youtu.be/v8rCP8pYkz0

Great day in the woods...

We had a great time today attempting to "tell the story" that we observed in the tracking boxes. It was a great lesson in observation and recording.

Wednesday and Thursday learners will put things together on Friday as we decide what really happened.

Thursday learners will be going out the same tracking boxes, but reset for this evening. Who knows, something might be out there right now!

Here is the "baseline" video for each of those boxes. It will give us something to compare to (our control) tomorrow.

I will post the final results of the tracks after all classes have had a chance to see them first hand.

This video is from our Meadow Tracking Box:

This is from our Well Tracking box:

These boxes were cleaned and baited around 2:00 p.m. this afternoon. Remember to dress appropriately with socks and shoes.

Day 2 Updates!

What an amazing two days!

As we continue to look at scientific ways of thinking, we will really begin to focus on observations and recordings.

Today, we reintroduced observation skills with a little "magic" trick. I am by no means a great magician, but it is still fun to watch...

IMPORTANT!..IMPORTANT!...IMPORTANT!...IMPORTANT!...IMPORTANT!...IMPORTANT!

On block day this week, we will be going outside to Swickard Woods. It might be a good idea to wear/bring long socks or boots to class!

Diving deeper in to observation and recording, we (Mrs. Willmore and I) have set up 2 tracking boxes in the woods. I baited these boxes with peanut butter this afternoon and we hope to attract some animal traffic.

Take a look at the boxes this afternoon...

Tracking Box #1

Meadow Habitat

Tracking Box #2

Edge Habitat

 

It will be great to see what visits over night!

Wow! First day reflections...

What an amazing first day back in the classroom! The learners were incredible.

Even with all of the confusion of a new building, new teachers and new friends, we were able to actually get some scientific thinking in during the day.

The goal for the day was pretty simple...get everyone thinking outside the box, being creative and being collaborative.

How many things can you make with 1 paperclip per person? (You must be able to document and prove your results!)

This lesson in modelled in a constructivist approach to learning, which relies heavily on learners building from past knowledge to "construct" new knowledge.

With only these directions, learners were forced to think critically about what was being asked, think creatively about possible solutions, and work collaboratively to expand their own thoughts.

The state of Ohio has the following standards set for this type of activity which deal with scientific ways of thinking:

Develop descriptions, models, explanations and predictions;

Think critically and logically to connect evidence and explanations;

Recognize and analyze alternative explanations and predictions

Communicate scientific procedures and explanations.

Learners had some great ideas after the initial phase of anxiety and confusion.

  

We also began exploring ways to document our thinking in order to archive it and use it later. We will begin looking at our results today!

Welcome back to school! Our goals for the first day are pretty simple:

1. Think...begin to revisit the scientific method and scientific ways of thinking.
1. We will do this through a paper clip activity.
2. Get learners comfortable with classroom and school procedures including:
1. Schedule
2. Lockers
3. Lunch
4. Name Tag creation

Notes for later this week...

We will be going out to Swickard Woods on Wednesday and Thursday!!! Dress appropriately!

Hope you had a good nights rest!

PARENT NOTICE...If you did not receive an email from me on Sunday evening, please fill out this form: