Planet Earth Pages
The Outdoor Classroom
Compiled by the staff of the School Nature Area
Project (SNAP); Matt Neilsen, Andrea Swanson, Char Bezanson,
Nalani McCutcheon, Gary Deason, Craig Johnson, Bill Lindquist.
This issue's Planet Earth Pages feature
activities that focus on investigating local ecosystems, whether
in the schoolyard or further afield. Ideas are presented in four
grade level categories, but many of them may be adapted to
several levels. Have a look!
- Landscape Tally
- Take a walk, looking for different colors, shapes, or
objects. Have students keep a tally sheet, marking down
the objects as the class finds them. Make simple graphs
to represent the numbers in the various categories. How
would you describe your area to someone from another city
or country?
- Classifications
- Have students collect 20 or so leaves that they find
lying on the ground, and sort them into different piles
(by color, shape, etc.). Discuss how different
classification criteria leads to different pile
distributions. What are some of the criteria we use to
classify groups of organisms such as mammals, birds,
plants, and insects? How might our ordering change if we
sorted using different criteria?
- Wild Groceries
- Discuss the position of items in a grocery store: some
are on the top shelf, some on the floor, some are stored
in the basement. Have students look at the outside
environment as a grocery store. What types of food are
located on the top shelf (canopy), lower shelf
(understory), bottom shelf (ground), and basement
(underground). From what shelves do different animals
`shop'? Do most animals `shop' from one specific shelf,
or are they evenly distributed?
- Animal Tracks
- Look for animal tracks in mud, sand or snow. Have the
students try to move their bodies in such a way as to
leave track patterns similar to those they have seen. How
difficult is it to move like other animals? Do you think
rabbits, deer or mice would have problems walking like
us? How does this relate to the concept of adaptation?
- Nature Crayons
- Have students collect small samples of leaves, twigs,
dirt, berries, etc., and rub them on a piece of paper to
determine what color, if any, their `nature crayon' has.
Have them draw a picture using the colors they can find
in their area. Caution them on what items they shouldn't
use (poison ivy, nettles, live animals, etc.)
- Eyes
- Have students `try on' the eyes of other animals. To
simulate having an eye on the top of your head, hold a
small mirror face up and level in your hand and look
straight into it. Try walking a few yards with this view.
For an eye on the side of the head, hold the mirror
perpendicular to the ground and facing to the side. How
do these views of the world differ from our own? Why do
you suppose some animals would want to have eyes in
different places? What role does seeing things in
different ways play in art?
- Landscape Changes
- Obtain journals of settlers in your area, and read aloud
to the students any descriptions of the landscape in your
area. Take a walk outside and make notes on what you see.
How has the landscape changed since the settlers were
here? How is it the same? If you, as a class, wrote a
description of your landscape, what would it be? Read Dandelions
by Eve Bunting and talk about the challenges and changes
in landscape the characters experienced.
- ABC Hike
- Walk around outside looking for things that begin with
the letters of the alphabet. As you come across an ant,
have the students either write about or draw a picture of
the ant under the letter A. See how many letters of the
alphabet you can cover.
- Signature Trees
- Identify a signature tree that is representative of the
trees in your area. Every year, have students measure the
circumference of the trunk at chest height and determine
its diameter, the diameter of the canopy, and the height
of the tree. Measure the length and width of randomly
selected leaves and determine average size. Compare the
data from year to year. What patterns of growth do you
see?
Each year, have students draw pictures of the
tree from a variety of angles. Label them carefully and
save them in your woodland archive. When students display
their finished drawing, show them drawings from past
years. What changes do they see? Take pictures of
students standing next to the tree.
- Animal Communities
- Explore animal communities that might make their home in
or around the signature tree. What evidence do you see of
them? What role does this tree play in the life of the
woodland?
- Fall Colors
- As the leaves begin to change color, pull off a leaf
every day. Dry them in a press. Record the dates they
were picked. When all are dry, laminate them on a poster
with their dates. Explore pigmentation and find out the
reason leaves change color.
- Tree Tales
- Have small groups of students sit silently for a short
period of time next to a tree. What sounds do they hear?
Where do they come from? If the tree could talk, what
stories could it tell? Write a haiku, cinquain, or other
poem about the tree. Read My Side of the Mountain
by Jean Craighead George about a boy who spends a year in
the woods making his home inside a carved out hemlock
tree. Write a sequel set in a nature area close to you.
- Prairie Changes
- Explore the role of the prairie in the lives of Native
people. How did it change as the Europeans moved in? How
did their attitude toward the prairies differ? Let
students sit quietly in the prairie and imagine what life
was like. What is the future of prairies in North
America? (This can be adapted for other ecosystems.)
- Nature in Art
- Look at illustrations and paintings of landscapes and
natural objects such as leaves, shells, twigs and stones.
What is the artist trying to communicate? A feeling, an
impression, a detail, technical information? What are
some different ways that artists might represent the same
object? Have students pick an item or a feature (a tree,
a twig, a dry grass) and represent it in different ways,
perhaps focusing on line, color or `impression' one day,
and on accurate proportions and specific details on
another. What are the advantages of each?
- Medicinal Herbs
- Identify and research plants that were used by Native
Americans and early European settlers as medicinal herbs.
Collaborate with a local naturalist to determine if any
of these plants grow locally. Are they native, or were
they brought to North America by European settlers? Are
any still in use? (Examples: Echinacea, Golden Seal,
Ginseng, Chamomile, Peppermint.) Conduct a field trip to
point out local medicinal herbs and try some herbal teas
made from them. Plan a garden of native medicinal herbs
for your school ground. Useful references: Kelly
Kindscher, Medicinal Wild Plants of the Prairie,
Univ. of Kansas Press, 1992; Laura C. Martin,Wildflower
Folklore, Globe Pequot Press, 1984.
- Seed Strategies
- In autumn, collect dry seed heads from weeds and
wildflowers. Have students draw, dissect, and analyze the
seed heads with the following questions in mind: Where
are the seeds? How can you tell? Are they different? Do
some appear to be more `ripe' than others? What makes you
think so? What strategy does this plant use to distribute
its seed? Are all the seeds released at once, or a few at
a time? Does seed distribution depend on animals, wind,
or something else? How do the characteristics of the seed
increase its chances of finding a good place to grow? How
are these dry seeds different from seeds in fleshy
fruits? What is the function of the fleshy fruit?
- Sowing Wild Seeds
- Try germinating `wild' seeds by rolling them in a moist
paper towel, and putting the towel in a plastic bag. Keep
it in a warm place for a week or two. How are wild seeds
different from seeds we buy? Do germination rates differ
between species? Have students research seed dormancy in
plant science textbooks or references. What purpose does
dormancy serve?
- No Uncertain Terms
- Investigate the need for specialized terminology. In
autumn, collect several different kinds of grasses,
including seed heads, from your school nature area or a
local natural area. Have students describe the grasses in
detail, but without using any specialized terms. Post all
the descriptions of each species of grass together. How
much alike are they? How long are they? Could you be sure
which grass was being described?
Using a resource such
as Brown (see below), teach a short lesson on grass
terminology. Include terms such as blade, sheath, node,
inflorescence, and spikelet. Have students describe the
grasses again, using the new terms they have learned.
Compare the descriptions. How have they changed? Now, how
similar are the descriptions to each other? How long are
they? What conclusions can we draw about specialized
terms? When is it beneficial to use them, and when does
using them interfere with communication? (This activity
could also be done with dry seed heads, as a prelude to
the Science activity.) Useful reference: Lauren Brown, Grasses:
An Identification Guide, Houghton-Mifflin, 1979.
- Life Like a River
- Discuss the concept of watersheds and the idea that
rivers and lakes develop characteristics which reflect
the `journeys' of the water flowing into them. Extend
this concept to consider `cultural watersheds.' How did
people `flow' to this place? What experiences did they
have in getting here? How does the community reflect the
characteristics of the people living there? Visit a river
or stream and compare in writing the role and growth of
the river with your own. Begin with questions such as,
How old is the river? What are the signs of its age? How
is it viewed? Who depends upon it? Compare/contrast what
you have observed about the river with your own growth
and responsibilities. At this point in your life, how are
you viewed? What are your responsibilities? Who depends
on you?
- Foot Loading
- The ability to travel through snow to obtain food and
shelter is crucial to many animals. Their travel is
influenced both by the characteristics of the snow and
their own physical characteristics. Heavier animals
generally have larger feet and longer legs than lighter
animals. One way to study how different animals move
through snow is to compare foot loads.
A footload is
an animal's mass per unit foot area. To compare foot
loads, the following foot load index is used: 100 -
(g/cm2)/10. Before going outside have students calculate
their body mass in kilograms (pound weight x 454/1000)
and their foot area (foot length x foot width). Go
outside and measure foot penetration in undisturbed and
packed snow. Construct a graph showing the relationship
between class members' foot load indexes and foot
penetration. Calculate the foot loading index of a pet
cat or dog and compare. Discuss the implications of big
and little feet for animals living in snowy environments.
- Weighty Water
- Measure how much water actually comes down when it rains.
First, calculate the area of the school yard. Measure the
next rainfall and calculate the volume of water that fell
on the school grounds (depth x area). Compare this volume
to equivalent quantities the students would recognize.
For added effect have the students calculate the weight
of this water (1 cubic foot weighs 28.4 kg/62.5 lbs).
Discuss where all this water goes.
- Animal Clans
- Throughout history cultures have used clan animals to
create a closeness to the natural world. Begin by
administering a personality inventory, such as the
Myers-Briggs Inventory, in which each student will be
given a descriptive label such as "extroverted,
intuitive, feeling, perceptive" and an explanation
of what the terms mean. Outside in a natural area, ask
students to list the living things they see, and to add
the animals living there that they did not see on this
visit. Discuss the characteristics of a few of the
species. Back in the classroom tell the students they
will be forming `clans' and selecting a plant or animal
that best represents their traits. Each group should
research several species, select one that is
representative of their group, and list the qualities of
their clan species that they find inspiring and want to
foster in their own lives. Develop visual displays that
highlight these traits and that can be used to introduce
the clan to the rest of the class.
The Planet Earth Pages activities were developed by the
following members of the School Nature Area Project in
Northfield, Minnesota: Nalani McCutcheon (K-3), Bill
Lindquist (4-6), Char Bezanson (7-8), and Craig Johnson
(9-12). Thanks to SNAP director Karen Van Norman for
coordinating the writing.