Building Scarecrows

Remember when we designed our scarecrows? Today we built them! Watch and see how our ideas went from paper to the garden.

Building Scarecrows from Edison Environmental Science Aca on Vimeo.

Week 5 in review, week 6 is underway!

Week 5 of Garden Camp was full of so many exciting things! Remember when we made pickles? We were able to taste test some of them last week and they were very yummy!

We also went to Ms. Pat's horse farm and rode horses. We learned that horses are prey animals and can get scared. We were very careful and the horses were too. By the end of our time there, they were friendly enough that they were eating right from our hands! That's because we also took time to create a yummy snack made just for horses.

On Thursday, we had a full day. We started the morning at the farmer's market in Kalamazoo. We also went swimming at Kik Pool and had lunch at Food Dance Cafe. The owner of Food Dance Cafe came out to greet us as well. They make their food with ingredients that they get from local farmers. The food was so yummy!

Our student bloggers have been busy writing in their journals (yes, pencil and paper!) but they have resumed blogging today. Here's what they had to say about the questions, "Why is it important to take care of our earth? How do you care for our planet?"

Elexus

7- 20 -09:It is important to keep our earth clean because if it was not clean it would look descusting and if it look descuting no one would want to live there.Icare for are planet so much because I love it and with out it I am nothing.

Brian

7-20-09 It is important to give our earth care because our earth is going bad and doesn't have enough care and needs a lot more care.We can take care of the earth by the three R's and don't do nothing bad for earth.

Week 5 of Garden Camp Has Begun!

Can you believe we have been at Garden Camp for 4 weeks already? With just 2 weeks of camp left, we are as busy as ever learning and having fun!

Chores on a farm need to be done every day and today is no exception. We worked in the garden and took care of the animals, making sure they have the food and water they need to grow. Speaking of the animals, our chickens are very close to producing eggs! They used to be little chicks but now they are growing up. In addition to the little chicks, Ms. Pat brought 3 chickens that were already able to lay eggs over. We are getting a few eggs now, but in a couple of weeks, we will have a lot more!

We also played a really neat board game that Mr. Johnson created. It was about the business of farming. It was a lot of fun. In the afternoon, Mr. Johnson taught us about profit with a really cool lesson. Some of us were buyers and some were sellers. After that, we worked together to figure out how much it cost to make our pickles last week. We also decided how much to sell them for at the farmers market.

Student Blog Entries July 9, 2009

Well, more than just July 9. Since we were at the zoo yesterday, here are entries from the past couple of days. We are talking about habitats this week.

Carmela:

7-7-09: If I was a frog I'd would live in a muddy area were I can look like mud.Snakes would never expect me! I'd also like to live in a habitat were there are insects,ponds and mud. It would be like if I was part of nature.

7-9-09: My favorite animal at the zoo was the zebras. I really like its habitat. Because it was BIG! It was so big that there was other animals. There was a pond that was covered up with algae. I really enjoy going to the zoo.

Brian:

7-7-09 If I were a deer my habitat would be in the woods with water and food thats right for a deer.

7-8-09 My favorite animal from the zoo was a monkey.A habitat is a home like place for animals to live.Food and water and the things the animals needs for it to look like home.

Look for the scarecrows

We have a big garden at Pretty Lake this year and we are working hard to take care of it. We don't want the birds and other animals to take what we are growing, so we decided to add some scarecrows! Watch this video and see how we designed them.

Making Scarecrows from Edison Environmental Science Aca on Vimeo.

We are scientists in the wetlands!

On July 2, we spent the morning in the wetlands around Pretty Lake observing the different kinds of life there. We took samples of some of the things we saw there and brought them back to our classroom so we could identify them. See for yourself with this video!

Wetlands Field Study from Edison Environmental Science Aca on Vimeo.

Student Blog Entries July 2, 2009

It's a cold day at Garden Camp today. Highs will be in the mid-60's with scattered rain. But the cold weather isn't dampening spirits here! We have an exciting day planned, including going fishing! We will post pictures taken by students once we have them.

Here's what one student blogger had to say this morning.

Carmela:

7-2-09: What is pollution? Where does it come from? How can it help you? Pollution is like when a chemical from a factory goes through a pipe into like a body of water like a lake or ocean. Then it becomes dirty. We can help by being organic and we shouldn't use chemicals.

Chickens? Yes! Chickens!

Chickens! from Edison Environmental Science Aca on Vimeo.

Catching up on the blog

It has been a busy week at Garden Camp! The Internet connection has been slow too, so we have been a little bit behind getting blog entries posted. But never fear, our sharp students have been working offline and saving their entries for you. We have been keeping our Flickr stream updated. In fact, between Carmela, Brian, Elexus, and Mr. Gettig, we have taken over 500 pictures this week alone!

Here's what Carmela had to say this week:

6-29- 09 : I really enjoy videotaping others. Because you can make a story without writing. There will always be a beginning,middle and end. Videotaping is harder then its looks. Its faster then making a book.

6-30-09: do you think it was cold this morning? I do. Today I and everybody went on a hike. I got to take pictures of a decomposing tree and a decomposer which is something that eats dead things . I go to take a lot of pictures of nature. Don't you you think nature is pretty ? If you do leave a comment. Tell all about it. I'll read it.

7-1-09: Yesterday I really had fun. I can't stop talking about it. I hardly see marshes,wetlands and swamps. I had to out watch out for poison ivy. I discover a diving beetle.Also Zack found a beach which is a beetle and a leach together. I also saw an american toad. Well, there is so much to talk about in one day. Bye! :)!

From Elexus:

7-1-09:yesterday I really had fun.I can not stop thinking about it I am going to tell you about some of the things we caught but not yet I am going to a lot about this gray tree I saw and I think it disolves so that it keeps ants or bug of it so that it could live. now I am going to tell you about what we caught salomns and tadpoles and diving beatle and a soloman with gils the end .

Look for a video about the chickens and the wetlands field study later today!