Bean Seeds and Flowers

     Some of our bean seeds have started to grow, one of them has grown out of  its CD case. 3 of them look like they're not going to grow, because they haven't grown at all since we planted them and we started them about 2 weeks ago. A couple of them look like they are colapsing in on themselves including mine. .                We are also have filled foam cups with water and put food dye in them. Some people chose blue dye or green and 3 people chose red. One person's flower has started to turn green as the stem pulls the water up it.  Hopefully the rest of ours will turn the colors over the weekend.    

Our beans are escaping

Keenan's flower is turning green

Written by Justin

Trillions of Trees

     Today,September 26`th, 2013,we measured trees. we`ve been working on this since Tuesday, and its been very fun. Well here`s what happened today. First we learned how to measure the diameter, the circumference, and the height. The measurement required a lot of  patience and teamwork, we had to make some adjustments and final answers.  In our group, first stop was mystery tree number 2 which is Blake's tree.  The next stop was Mikel's tree which happened to be the largest tree in our group. Then we looked for Logan's tree which we didn`t find, sadly. The good news was, Mrs. Garcia was able to find a tree that looked like Logan's,so we used that tree. Next, we stopped at my tree.My tree was small, but it had a lot of   features to it.  Then we got to measure Hunter's tree. It was quite large, but not as large as Mikel's  tree. Last, we stopped at Lucian's tree. His tree was a sapling, so it was the smallest tree, of course.  The mystery tree project was really fun, and I hope to do it again. Next week we will be finding out what the name of our mystery tree is by using websites and tree identification books.  We will look up our tree based on its characteristics using a dichotomous key.                              
Written by Kathryn

Measuring diameter using parallel yardsticks.

Teamwork: holding a frame so a classmate can draw the bark.

Pre-teaching the math concepts to use in the field.

Tree Characteristics

     Today Mr.Abrams came back in and we are working on non-living and living things that are part of the forest ecosystem.We are making posters that say leaf ,twig ,height,and bark.Today we did the first

part of it.We colored the leaf and twig part today.We each have a mystery tree and we have to draw a picture of  the leaf and the twig of the mystery tree we got. My leaf  had a hole on the right side of it and you can see the vanes on the back of it .

On the front of it, it had a caterpillar trail.  It was pretty cool. My twig had little seeds popping out of it and there was at least 5 leaves coming out of the twig.We all had a great time doing this project of  the mystery tree.

 Written by Keenan

DIchotomous Keying

Almost there... a few more questions.

     In order to understand how to use a dichotomous key for our tree project we used this concepts with seeds today.  The children were asked to come up with a yes or no question to start classifying their seeds.  Our first question was is this seed brownish red or not?  That broke the seeds into 2 groups.  From there we broke the brownish red group into 2 more groups.
     Once we were done with the brownish red seeds we moved on to the seeds that were left.  I am extremely excited about how well the kids did with coming up with their yes or no questions and breaking their seed groups down to a group of one kind of seed that could then be looked up and identified by its physical characteristic.  It was clearly one of those "AHAH" moments.

Now it will be fun to see them do this with their tree study starting next week.  Is this a coniferous tree?  yes or no?  Is it an opposite branching tree?  yes or no?  until their mystery tree is identified.  FUN, FUN, FUN.

A Walk in the Woods

     Today we walked near the vernal pool on our campus looking for parts of the Tree Life Cycle

Mr. Abrams teaching us at the vernal pools

.  We found evidence of seedlings, saplings, mature trees and decomposing trees.  This is the life cycle of the tree and the trees in the forest.  They are all part of a system called the forest ecosystem.  We also were looking for evidence of life.  We found consumers such as Red Efts, which are carnivores and also frogs.  We also found producers which are plants.

Decomposers are very important in a forest because they break down trees and other plant life.  The decomposers we found were many kinds of mushrooms.  Some were stringy, some looked like a dome, and some were flat.  Some even looked like coral.  We learned that most of the fungis is actually under ground or in a decomposing tree.  The mushroom is kind of like the flower where its spores are released to make more fungis.

    

While we were outside we took notes on our charts and we sketched what we found and colored it in to show the systems of a forest.
      Mr. Dale Abrams was our guest today.  He lead us on our walk and taught us lots about the forest.

Written by Hunter

                                                         

Our Seed Cases

 

On September 12th we planted a pea and a bean seed in a clear CD case.  Mine has alot of progress so far, same with my friends. My friends and I had fun observing our cases.I had a lot of fun seeing it grow. I liked planting the seed with my teacher.Mine has 8/11ths of a sprout. The seedcoat has broken in Mrs.Garcia's class project. 

Written by Lucian