Week 6 - Field Session 31 Aug

Week 6 Field Session [31 August; 10am -11am] [Emma]

Topic: Who lives at the stream – plants and animals – continuation of last session

This was what we covered - finish our work from last session on

Measuring the stream – length and width

Plants – how many and what species

Who lives at the stream – indicator species – why? Overall question – how can we tell the stream health? And what effect is our stream having on the stream?

Review of safety; 3 main things to remember to keep safe

Review last session;

Why are butterflies bodies fluffy? – an ongoing question which seams to have an answer but not the one we hoped for - this is what I found as the general – butterflies have a slender abdomen with fine scales, but moths have short, hairy or furry looking bodies with larger scales on their bodies which makes them look heavier and fluffy – why? Moths come out at night = nocturnal and therefore need to conserve heat at night = so using the extra fluffy stuff to keep warm. But butterflies around during the day, absorb sunlight so keep warm without the need for extra fluff on their bodies. The students were into this discussion, Ryan and Tyler were on the ball thinking through this – this could be extended looking into other animals that come out at night – do they appear or behave differently and why? For example owls that hunt at night have silent wings to catch their prey as they fly at night, or kiwi birds that have good eye sight when in the bush at night.

We started off measuring the stream the length of the stream using tape measures, 1 group started at the road and a second group went down to the blue pipe mid way through the stream. The groups calculated that the length was 180.34 meters. To save time we decided to do the width at the end and subsequently forgot! So we need to do this next time. We discussed Why do we need these measurements? What would they help with? – why are they important for scientists studying an area?

Next we looked at the plants on the stream banks – we reviewed last week dividing things into non-living and living then looking at the living group there was animals and plants, but last week we looked at just animals now we will look at the plants. Note: plants includes trees too.

We saw flax – harakeke, blackberry and deadly nightshade. We discussed that flax is native and well adapted to live in this area. Some scientists believe that plants adapt and change to their environment. What does adapt mean?

(we didn’t really discuss adaptation a lot this could be something to focus on in class and find examples of adaptations on the animals and plants at the stream – some other questions could be Have a look and list the different plants and look for adaptations that they have to help them live and survive – are there lots of plants? What does the presence of these plants tell us about the health of the stream?)

We talked around the idea of native versus introduced and endemic – do think it really matters? Think about your school and the students who started at 5 or have moved to the area since then? We also talked about the council spraying the plants that are invasive and what that means – i.e. the poison sprayed on the plants and will flow into the stream and end up in Tye Park.

We had heaps of wonderings …

Tyler asked about how plants grow in winter and summer?

Ethan asked and thought about the poison going into the stream and whether it would kill other plants too?

In the last 10 minutes we did a second search for any new invertebrates – I had changed 1 of the nets to make the holes smaller – the students were very keen to get in the water and we can aim to do this next time if we bring a change of clothes and gumboots. We finished off with a quick rubbish collection as we were surprised by the amount last time.

We forgot to measure the width of the stream … next time. Emma left 2 good library books with the teachers to look at in class with lots of invertebrate pictures. Also next time we will look at abiotic factors like temperature, stream speed, depth of the water, etc.

Debrief;

What was interesting? What further questions do we have?

Length and width of stream = figures at school to share

Plant numbers and species = what does this also tell us about the health of the stream?

Invertebrates again – did we find any new species? – what research did you do in class?

What can we say about the health of our stream?

Week 4 photos

Week Four - Field Session

Environmental Explorers-Week 4 Summary [17^th August]

Topic: What are the living things there? Who lives in the stream and why?

We started of this week’s session reviewing what we had done last time

Looking at things in a scientific way – magnifying and measuring

Questions?

How many metres in a km?  1000 metres

Why is a butterfly’s body fluffy? – we still couldn’t get answer and we decided to do some further research on this.

We also reviewed our safety rules

We explained how scientists group things – we grouped our own foot wear using bare foot, gum boots as the main groups. Then we looked at the difference between Abiotic / Biotic –- around into the trees and bushes, by the creek. Like a treasure hunt with clip board and listing living [biotic] and non-living things [abiotic] things. We got some really cool things – we asked what other category could we use? Some man made things came up?

W then looked at Biotic things animals, plants, fungi bacteria – most specifically animals - List all the animals that you can think of that live here

Consider the scientific grouping – what’s the difference – back bone –

-       vertebrate (mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians)

-       invertebrate (85% of all creatures, beetles, spiders)

We then went on to look at the animals in the stream – mostly invertebrates

Finding Macro Invertebrates in the stream – we used a range of equipment – magnifying glasses, nets and trays to sort out the animals. There was many invertebrates that went back to class to show the rest of the group

Key Wondering:

What can we say about the health of the stream?

Debrief; overview of scientific category’s and the invertebrates we have found –

What is Abiotic / biotic?

What is an invertebrate?

What was your favourite thing we saw today?

Week 2 - Field Session

Week 2 Field Session [3^rd August; 10am-11am] Summary

Topic: What can we see?

Our intension was to give the children a good 20 minutes to discover and wander around the park. We started on the far side of the stream (opposite side to the school). We told them the main question of the term “What effect does our school have on the stream and the surrounding area?”

How do we look in a scientific way? Ask lots of questions about what wee see and what we are looking at. Why???What do you notice about this area? Do you come down here? What do like? What do you not like? The only child that had not been there before was Nora. Tyler was very good at sharing her experiences and mentioned there is eels in the stream that hide under the pipes.

 We walked through the trees towards the bank. The trees had lost their leaves and we asked why? Oho was very clear in saying it was because of the seasons – it is winter now and leaves loosing their leaves – as we questioned further she even said that some trees were evergreen! There was lots of litter here we even found some paper from the school – the kids identified it too!

We wandered up to the bank and found some natives – interesting insects on the bark – there was 2 common crane flies – lying bottoms together which was really interesting, red berries from the miro tree and bright pink puriri flowers. A fantail came to say hello. We collected old dried seed pods too.

It was very muddy on the grass walking back to the stream. We recommend gum boots or bare feet in future

We discussed how to measure things properly – we had magnifying glasses, 50cm wooden rulers and 50 metre tape measures. We divided into 3 groups and walked to under the trees behind the school and practised measuring diameters of trees, using the magnifying glass to look closely at things and measuring smaller things with the wooden rulers. It worked really well and the kids were into a guided activity but being able to choose what they measured. Tyler was especially taken with a butterfly she found, and wanted to build a nest for it.

Debrief; what are we thinking about? What did we find that was really interesting and we want to investigate more? – write down 3 questions or 3 topics or things that we want to learn more about.

Main 2 questions to research during classroom time

·      How many metres in a km?

·      Why is the butterflies body all fluffy?