Living Things Update

In the past month we've had a couple surprising additions to the nature room.

Beginning of March 2014

Bunny (Midnight Shadow) 

The animals we inherent are usually pets that people no longer want. Personally, I'd rather us be getting animals native the the Hudson River and shorezone... This particular bunny was at the center for a short time a year ago, and seeing him back makes the kids happy and in return makes me happy. 

Our bunny supplies aren't great.. the bottom of the cage has a big crack that has a temporary patch up, the water bottle leaks and constantly gets knocked over by the bunny. He's a very active bunny and also knocks over the food dish even when it is full. He's a bit high maintenance..... but we make do. I'm slowly getting kids used to and helping with cleaning out the poo & cage daily.

End of March 2014

House Crickets

Back in January we received  a Cricket Breeding Kit from Carolina Biological. It comes with a tiny plastic cage, food, peat pots, soil, and the breeding dishes with mesh. They send about 30 live crickets, except due to extreme cold they were all dead when we received them. We got a second batch shipped to us once it was a little warmer. We decided to put them in a larger tank that we had on hand. 

None of us had knowledge or experience with crickets. I've learned the following through trial and error:

• Crickets will drown themselves if you give a full water dish. Wet paper towel works well
• The egg laying dishes need to be sprayed with water daily or sooner, if the soil dries out so do the eggs and they die.
• Crickets do not live for very long
• Crickets, especially cricket eggs, need to be kept in 85+ degrees F temperatures
• It is best to only have substrate in the breeding dish (not dirt everywhere around the cage)
• It is encouraged to remove the egg dish once eggs are deposited and place them in a new tank, then place a new egg dish in the adult cricket tank. (in order to prevent young from being eaten)

All that being said... we now only have one cricket left as of 4/27 :(

 Mushrooms

We had a grow your own mushroom kit, which guarantees edible pearl oyster mushrooms will grow in 10 days. It took ours much much longer to grow... so long that I worried they weren't going to grow at all, or that the humidity in our room was a problem. We prepped the "farm" around the second week in March (12/13th). Upon coming into the room on April 7, after the weekend, I was super pleasantly surprised to see mushrooms finally! There was no sign of anything the previous Friday... but some magic seemed to happen that weekend!

The dates of the mushroom photos are: March 31, April 7, April 7, April  8, and April 11. I plucked them off a day or so after April 11th because they had dried out over the weekend. 

Unfortunately, my boss didn't want us to eat them because of concern that all the animals in the room (dander, waste, whatever else in the air) would have made them unsafe to eat. 

Seedlings

We planted our seeds on March 10 and on the 25th we finally had one sprout! Unfortunately, this is the only one that has sprouted. Future advice to myself: don't use seeds that seem old and especially not if past the package expiration date... even if the package is unopened. This one continues to be growing well. It is the only pot that was planted with Bright Lights seeds

Mid April 2014

Ringed-Neck Pheasants

Hopefully by May 9 our eggs will hatch! Put in the incubator on April 16.

Guinea Pig (Mr.Squeaky)

The same day we got the eggs, we unexpectedly got a guinea pig. Again another pet from pet owners who can no longer care for it. He's not used to people yet and nibbles a bit. ALSO RUNS RIDICULOUSLY FAST. Makes cleaning the cage difficult since he has to be taken out to do so.

Butterflies

April 14 marked the 50th anniversary of Rachel Carson's (author of Silent Spring) death. Her efforts helped bring awareness to the impacts of pesticides & herbicides on birds as well as pollinators like butterflies and bees. A nationwide initiative (makewayformonarchs.org) encouraged communities to find ways to increase monarch awareness or conservation efforts. Monarch butterflies have been in decline for a variety of reasons. We painted flower pots & planted milkweed seeds, a plant that attracts butterflies. 

We had a lot of great posters about the life cycle of butterflies and the different species of butterflies and moths. We did a life-cycle activity with pasta noodles that are the shape of the phases in the metamorphosis process. We also had several specimen and some plastic butterfly life-cycle "toys" that are really great. Kids enjoyed putting them in chronological order.

Coincidentally, my friend and I found a wolly bear over the weekend... so I kept it to bring in. Live animals are always a hit. Everyone was very excited and wanted a chance to hold it.

Macros and Invasives in the Hudson Valley

Invasives

To introduce invasive species, I had a ton of fantastic images of invasive commonly found in this area and the Hudson, which I projected on the board. Some I collected on my own, other were great diagrams from the Cary Institute.

I also had my string of water chestnuts for the kids to see and touch. Since there is a beach on the river nearby, many were able to identify these as cowheads or the pointy things that hurt! 

Macroinvertebrates 

I collected a bunch of macros from the Esopus Creek. Really didn't find too much, a ton of scuds and a few snails and a water beetle. Plus some spiders, green algae, muck, and plants from near the water.

I set up petri dishes and several MacroLens and the kids had a field day looking at them. Putting down a white cloth on the table helps see them better. I also had ID books and other stream ecology visuals for them to look at.We took a look at some of the organisms under the microscope as well!

History of the Hudson

The Hudson River has been a very important part of history in the Hudson Valley and NYS!

Human impacts to the HR over time

I slightly modified an activity I used to run at the Hudson River Park Trust. It is an interactive story that teaches the differences and similarities in the Hudson River between the 1950's and present day. This game should be modified based on age group.. at HRPT we did different versions based on knowledge level, ability to read, etc. Essentially you tell the story of the Hudson being polluted and trashed due to factories, over fishing, and the general public. People like politicians and scientists tried to help but it wasn't enough. Today regulations are in place for releasing waste and chemicals, fishing limits, and people are more conscious of properly throwing away their trash. I assisgn kids a role, like the fisherman or scientist. During the story they are responsible for placing or removing "trash" "pollution" or "fish" from the river. At HRPT we used felt for the river, plastic bottles, and green felt for pollution. I used a vinyl blue material this time and construction paper cut outs for pollution. For fish I use the fish specifically found in the Hudson and laminated them with the name on the back. This also gave kids the chance to learn the fish names... this entertained some for days!

Hudson Geography
I threw an activity together, inspired by a similar activity from DEC. Kids started with a blank map of NYS. Together (with the help of some bigger maps) we determined where the Hudson River is, where it starts, where it ends, what other important features border the river or the river passes through. We identified where we live and where certain fish live (salt vs fresh water).

Discover the Hudson River Activity Books

I love these activity books from Project WET so much! Great for self-guided learning or to do as a group. My kids particularly liked the page where you record which fish and plants are found in just salt water, just fresh, or brackish.

Responsibility and Recycling

We had a field trip to the local recycling facility planned for the end of the week, so during rock week we also took some time to think about our individual responsibility to protect earth's resources and keep our neighborhood clean. We did a clean-up around our building, then walked to the nearby playground to also clean up some trash. Everyone was super energetic and motivated to collect as much trash as possible. We found some pretty crazy things! Like nail polish, a hammer, and many balls.. some good enough to keep! I was really proud of the hard work my kids all put into the clean-up that day.

On Friday, we got a great tour of the recycling facility. The weather wasn't too great and behavior wasn't at its best either, but we trekked through. 

We learned that our plastic, glass and metal get separated on site

We got a close up of the assembly line at work

 We even spotted the large magnets pulling out the metal items

Our town is unique and "ahead of the game" because we are single stream, the rest of the county is not.

 All our recycling gets placed into a pile here temporarily and is brought elsewhere to be sorted with a larger single-stream sorter.

Compost is made and sold on site!

Makes you think twice about the waste we consume.

Earth's Rocks & Resources

For a theme on rocks and other natural resources I focused on

• Minerals vs Rocks
• What is earth made of?
• What things are naturally found in or on earth?

We used the one of my flip-chart activity books that I love so much, this one was

All About Earth.



We examined different properties of minerals- some are chalky, magnetic, cubic, thin and sheet-like,make colored streaks, easily scratch glass... We discovered certain minerals that make up commonly used items like pencil lead.

We read books to identify minerals and rocks by name. We also read stories to teach about the 3 different types of rocks: sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic.

Then we played a game where I had the kids try to sort a set of rocks into the 3 categories.

We did a simple test for limestone in our rocks by dripping some vinegar. A rock should fizz in the presence of limestone. KIDS COLORED SIDEWALK CHALK, like Crayola, turns out to not be made from limestone... so it doesn't work on those.

Rock Cycle Songs:
We Will Rock You
3 Types of Rocks (London's Bridge)
Rock Cycle Song (Row, Row Row Your Boat)

Towards the end of the week we talk about what natural resources are. I created an activity sheet to help sort renewable, nonrenewable, and man made resources. Kids had to cut and glue the images in the right boxes. We talked about what all these words mean and how many man-made resources are built ( in part) from resources on earth (like wood from trees to make a house).

We recently received this amazing 3D landscape model. It features 7 difference major landscapes/ geological features such as canyon, glacier, valley, volcanic island, etc. On each piece all the features on the landscape are numbered. There is a book where the kids could look up the numbers to learn the names and definitions of these features (i.e.- fjord, kettle lake, peninsula..) The sides also give you a soil profile of the layers commonly found underground in each area. Some show fault lines or intrusions and help tie in where sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks are most commonly found.