Woodmont Academy:
1. Name of student or students: (Please note information that you DO NOT want
on the site, i.e. last name)
We have two classes that worked as a group on this project, so the groups are Ms.Stricklen's 4th grade class and Ms. Jozwik's 6th grade class. There are a total of 20 students in Ms. Jozwik's class and 25 in Ms Stricklen's class.
2. Name of School, Church, Family or Other group:.
Woodmont Academy
3. Name of City and State.
Southfield, MI
4. E-mail address and phone number.
(248) 352-1805
Heather Stricklen hstricklen@comcast.net
Joanna Jozwik joanna82@comcast.net
5. Environmental Activity
The activity included turning a run down, littered, drab back woods into a beautiful natural habitat for wildlife and native plants in the area. The area will also be used as an outdoor classroom so other students in the school will be able to enjoy the natural world around them. The 4th and 6th grade students have worked hard to clean up all the litter, create shelters for animals, native Michigan plants, and help spread knowledge about the Emerald Ash Borer that has killed all the Ash trees in our back woods. While the students have helped clean the natural wonder, they had hands-on experiences on why it is important not to disturb the natural world around them and why it is important to keep the world around them clean.
Charlotte Country Day School:
I teach science in an independent day school in Charlotte, NC. We are an authorized International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme school, with our curriculum driver being inquiry. The students study specific units of inquiry under seven guiding themes throughout their Lower School experience, and by 4th grade, they are required to deliver a unit of study that they have crafted themselves that incorporates a global understanding, personal reflection, and an action piece. Living in the southeast, the children have all been very concerned about the current drought conditions. This concern developed into a larger unit of study entitled, “It’s Our Water.” Each of the five 4th grade sections were responsible for different lines of inquiry that related to their central idea. Their action piece was to come together as a grade level and present an Exhibition of their knowledge in hopes to motivate others to conserve water, to do their part in affected areas by cleaning up polluted water sources, raise awareness about types of pollutants, and then encourage their visitors to go out and inspire others to do the same. The pictures attached demonstrate the lengths that the children went to illustrating their knowledge and passion for making a change in the world’s water supply. Some of their projects included testing for water quality, macroinvertebrate sampling, designing a board game with water facts, building dioramas, and identifying the numerous types of pollutants that threaten our water sources. I would like to nominate Charlotte Country Day School’s fourth grade class (and their amazing teachers) for the “Defenders of the Planet” award. I feel that their enthusiasm, hard work, and presentations truly represented a sense of adventure, discovery, fun, and exploration. The magnitude of their presentations demonstrates their passion and commitment to their purpose, and opened the eyes of their visitors to visualizing a more significant role they could share in saving our planet’s water sources.
Sincerely,
Lori Townsend
Name of students:
2007-08 4th Grade Class and Teaching Team (In the event that the usage of pictures is necessary, please refrain from including last names if visible.)
Name of school:
Charlotte Country Day School
Name of City/State:
Charlotte, NC
Email Address/Phone Number:
lori.townsend@charlottecountryday.org 704-943-4789
Environmental Activity:
Exhibition 2008-“It’s Our Water”
Lines of inquiry:
-Local/National:
-reasons to conserve
-ways communities use water
-impact of communities on water supply
-World:
-distribution and availability of water
-impact of human activity on water
-characteristics of weather conditions and climate
-Ecosystems:
-interdependence within ecosystems
-diversity of animals and plants found in the ecosystems and their physical and behavioral adaptations to their environment
-effects of people on the ecosystem
-effects of drought on the ecosystem
-Water Purification:
-the necessary qualities of “safe” water
-causes and effects of dirty water
-water purification process
-Water Pollution:
-mankind’s involvement in water pollution and its effects
-race to reduce or prevent water pollution
Lori Townsend
Lower School Science
Varsity Cheerleading Coach
Charlotte Country Day School
1440 Carmel Rd. Charlotte, NC 28226
704-943-4789
Butterworth Elementary School:
1) 43 third grade students
2) Butterworth Elementary School
3) Moline, Illinois
4) Kristen Bergren kbergren@molineschools.org, 309 743 8218 (classroom #) 309 743 1604 (school #)
5) National Park Fair:
After learning about national parks and national park rangers, all of the third graders write to a different national park that they have choosen. In the letter they request information to use for our national park fair. All of my students had their requests answered! For a couple of weeks, I delivered mail to my students from their parks. It was like Christmas when they received their letters!
Each jr. ranger is required to write a report, make a display on a trifold, and create souvineers from their park. (favorites from the past have been...lava rocks from Hawaii Volcanoes and painted yellow rocks from Yellowstone!). Our second grade and special education students are our "tourists" along with familiy and friends. Jr. rangers wear an "official" outfit which is a bandana, white shirt, and tan pants. Our fair begins with a visit and talk from a real national park ranger from our closest national park. Then they travel to the "visitor centers" and listen to the jr. rangers share about their park (who are now experts!) . Next the tourists write in their passports a fact they learned about the park and receive a label with the parks name on it for their passport. They also get a souvenir!
After the tourists leave, the jr. rangers take turns visiting each other's parks!
It is a day the kids don't forget and take to heart. The first quetion former students ask me is...Have you had the national park fair yet?
"The more we know, the more we care." is why we have our national park fair. Students, along with their families, our introduced to our wonderous national treasures....our natioanl parks. With that knowledge, the hope is they will be better stewards of these special places which encompass beauty, fragile habitats and our country's history. Over the 13 years I've had this project, many families have then included their child's park in their family vacation!
Thanks for all the work your wonderful organization does in educating and promoting stewardship for our planet!
Homeschool:
1. Name of student : RANDALL M.
2. Name of School: HOMESCHOOL.
3. Name of City and State. BEACH PARK,IL
4. E-mail address and phone number. LITTLEPIXIE0531@YAHOO.COM, 224-723-8689
5. Environmental Activity. CLEANUP AND RECYCLING
St. Patrick School:
School - wide involvement
St. Patrick School
Rodeo, California
polenta124@hotmail.com--teacher/moderator for Earth Week
510-799-2506--school ; 707-996-5636--home
For four days the student body brought in tennis shoes (250 pairs) to
be recycled into tennis courts, soccer fields, basket ball courts. The
shoes were taken to "Niketown" in San Francisco, and were shipped to
Oregon at the Nike plant where the shoes were cut into 3 sections to
begin the process of becoming courts--indoor and outdoor.
We sang the "Promise Song" each day during Earth Week, and in some
classes, continue singing it as a reminder of our duty to our Earth.