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Sometimes you just have to take the program to them. That's the case with Madrona's 8th grade science classes. Rather than making trips to Magnuson Park or the Burke Museum for their program, Madrona is making use of the program’s resources at the school. In the first visit, MOLL Educators guided students through an hour and a half program called Observation of Nature.
The first activity guided students through six different warm-ups for sketching natural history. Everyone enjoyed the challenge of sketching and even writing with their opposite hand. Tim Stetter, the Burke's Environmental Educator, coached them along: "Be sure to label that drawing – you might not recognize it later!"
During a class show-and-tell, two boys and a girl volunteered to piece together three mysterious bones: two heavy vertebrae and an intervertebral disk from a gray whale. The team figured the bones made up part of a backbone, but they didn’t know how or to what animal the bones belonged. After a few attempts – including one that the class determined would be an "uncomfortable" backbone! – the students settled on the correct formation and held it up to show their classmates.
Another highlight came outside on the basketball court when the class created a "web of life." Each student received a card with a photo and sentence representing one plant or animal of an old-growth forest. One boy, to the delight of his peers, was a banana slug. Other students took on roles as a bobcat, hemlock tree, pileated woodpecker, salmonberry, and more. Each plant or animal connected to another in the circle, and a string was passed from student to student to show that connection. The class especially enjoyed how the black bear connected to the plants: his scat (or droppings) enrich the soil! By connecting all these pieces together with string, the twenty students became one interconnected web. They saw that any action, whether drought or logging, effects the entire web. The 8th grade science teacher, Betty Lynch, said "The circle project was great – we may have to do this in the classroom."
After the visit, the Burke also provided Traveling Study Collections on owls and marine invertebrates. "We joined several tables together," explains Mrs. Lynch, "kept the items in the cases, and viewed them carefully. And of course, some of the girls pretended to be not interested, but they were the first to try to view the items. The owls were beautiful, and the students were very interested."
Whether in the field, the museum, or the classroom, the Magnuson Outdoor Learning Lab is making a difference for these students. Stay tuned for more news and updates! |
