New location for the blog!

ATTENTION!

We are excited to announce that we have moved the Edison Garden Blog to a new location! You can now follow us at http://edisongarden.com

Please update your bookmarks and RSS feeds accordingly. See you there!

Robot Milker

We went to the MSU dairy farm and we saw baby cows and cows being milked by a robot. Then we went to the bird sanctuary.

Hay have you ever been to the farmers market.Well if you haven't I suggest that you go.

Because edison garden camp student will be selling there crops that were hand grown in

pretty lake garden!!!!

look at the picture of the frog Esperanza caught at pretty lake.Can you figure out what type frog it is?

look at the picture of the red tomato that was grown in the edison garden.

look at the picture of the plant that we cut down from behind Mrs. hansens portable.

Planting in the garden at Pretty Lake

Working at Garden Camp from Edison Environmental Science Aca on Vimeo.

Building Spaghetti & Marshmallow Towers

Look at this picture of these students building spaghetti and marshmallow towers! Look how huge they are!

In this lesson, we were learning whether it was better to trade or buy materials. We hope where you live you can build one of these by yourself.

Blogger of the day: Elexus, Gaby, and Rusber

Summer break means Garden Camp!

Another school year has come to an end. It is exciting to see our students progress to the next grade, and some of them to middle school!

But just as the school year concludes, Garden Camp has begun! This year, students are splitting their time between Edison and Pretty Lake. The students have already begun taking care of the raised beds at the school and even visiyed the farmer's market!

Check back throughout the summer, or better yet, subscribe to the RSS for this blog in your reader, to stay up to date with this exciting summer program at Edison Environmental Science Academy.

2nd grade field trip - Finch Greenhouse at WMU

The 2nd grade classes embarked on an exciting adventure to Western Michigan University last week! Their destination was the Finch Greenhouse. It was a full morning of exploration as they toured the greenhouse, discussed what they saw, and had many of the concepts of our Magnet curriculum reinforced with hands-on learning. Watch part 1 of this exciting field trip!

2nd Grade to WMU Finch Greenhouse Part 1 from Edison Environmental Science Aca on Vimeo.

Earth Olympics Day 3 - Compost Scavenger Hunt

It's Day 3 of the Earth Olympics and what a difference we are making for the Earth! Today's event is the Composting Scavenger Hunt.

Students in all grades are gathering 5 pounds of organic material to be put into the composting

barrel in the courtyard. This is a timed event and the team to get 5 pounds the fastest wins!

Earth Olympics Day 2 - Solar Competition

Day 2 of the Earth Olympics at Edison Environmental Science Academy was an exciting adventure into alternative energy! In addition to the reducing, reusing, and recycling happening around the school, students explored how to harness the sun's energy for a practical purpose: heating water. This event was conducted at every grade level, but this video shows you how the 4th and 5th grade students competed. The real winner? The Earth!

Earth Olympics - Solar Competition from Edison Environmental Science Aca on Vimeo.

The Earth Olympics Have Begun!

At 8:30 AM today, the Earth Olympics at Edison Environmental Science Academy officially launched! We will be tweeting the events as often as possible at http://twitter.com/edisonesa and posting pictures and videos to this blog. Here's a video of the opening ceremony!

Earth Olympics Opening Ceremony from Edison Environmental Science Aca on Vimeo.

Edison and El Sol - Partners for Living History

Thanks to the International Media Exchange in Kalamazoo, Michigan, students from Edison Environmental Science Academy and El Sol Elementary are working together to create videos of the Latino community in Kalamazoo. These videos will present historical accounts from real people in Spanish to help preserve their stories for generations.

The partnership is off to a great start with the Edison VJ's (video journalists) in 5th grade working with 5th grade students at El Sol. They are learning how to ask good interview questions, how to conduct an interview, and even getting interviewed themselves!

The end result will be a series of videos to be posted on the web and broadcast on the Public Media Network on local cable television. Here is a quick video showing one of the sessions where students from both schools worked together on this wonderful and promising project.

Preparations from Edison Environmental Science Aca on Vimeo.

Cleaning Up the Courtyard

It's Spring and time to cleanup the Edison Courtyard!

Cleaning Up the Courtyard from Edison Environmental Science Aca on Vimeo.

Community Night March 2010 - Fill Those Bowls!

What a great time we had at Community Night this week! Art Teacher Ms. Hansen organized a special cooperative effort with Empty Bowls and Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes so that we could not only serve soup to our families, but send them home with a ceramic bowl made by an Edison student. In case you missed it, here's a quick video with some highlights. Make plans now to attend the next Community Night in June when we announce the winners of the Edison Digital Film Festival!

Oh, have a great Spring Break too! :)

Vote for your favorite in the Edison Digital Film Fest

The Edison Digital Film Festival was unveiled at Literacy Night in February. Many people enjoyed the wonderful short films created by students at Edison Environmental Science Academy and were told that yes, they would be able to view them online. Today we are excited to tell you that they are here for your viewing AND voting!

The films that were submitted can be viewed in our Vimeo channel.

To vote for your favorite, head over to twtpoll!

New Daily Announcements Page

One of the great things we love about Blogger is that Google is always making it better. A recent improvement that we are especially excited about is the ability to make pages, not just blog posts. This is great news if you are using Blogger for a classroom or school blog because you can do neat things like this...

Create a separate page just for daily video announcements!

Click the link at the top of this page or here to see the latest video announcements produced by Edison students.

Students Take Pride in Their Work

One of the wonderful opportunities students at Edison Environmental Science Academy have available to them is the after-school program. Funded by the 21st Century grant, students are able to extend their school day and accentuate their learning in some very exciting ways.

Students are teamed up with adult coaches who make sure they get their snack right after regular dismissal, work with them on homework, and lead them in special activities. Coach Hillsman gave her students a special assignment this past week: a digital camera safari!

With four digital cameras, kids were split into groups and instructed to take pictures of whatever they wanted to around the school. The catch? They had to be ready to explain why they took each picture!

Here's a video that shows some of those pictures. Notice how many pictures are of projects that they have completed and are displayed either in the hallway or in the classrooms. Students at Edison Environmental Science Academy take great pride in their work...and they should! They are doing great things on their journey to a fantastic future in middle school, high school, college, and beyond!

Community Night A Great Success

With tables for every grade setup to show-off student work, and dozens of family members there to take it in, our second quarter Community Night was a wonderful evening for everyone that attended.

Clay models of transportation, posters of alternative energy inventions, videos of students explaining the watershed and dam situation in Kalamazoo County, and radio commercials from specialized and non-specialized (student) farmers. These are just some of the student products that were on display for Community Night.

The highlight of the evening was the presentation of Merit

Awards to several Edison students. Every teacher and the after-school program coaches nominated students to receive this award for good behavior, outstanding citizenship, and the kind of attitude and focus that will see them through to college. There was many a proud parent in the audience as students from pre-school to 5th grade were called forward to accept their awards.

Keep an eye on this blog and our official website at http://edisonmagnet.org for the date of the next Community Night.

Math in the New Year

There are always great things happening at Edison Environmental Science Academy. As you peek in the classrooms, you might see any number of great learning moments taking place.

Growing herbs in the greenhouse for sale to local restaurants, inventing new environmentally safe cars and power-generating hairbrushes, and learning about gravity. What is one thing all of these have in common? Math!

We started the school year with a new math curriculum designed to bring deeper understanding and higher achievement for our students. Teachers have been focusing on these critical skills in every grade level. With the assistance of hands-on manipulatives, differentiated math learning centers, and continuous peer review with other teachers, we are excited to see our students come alive as they learn math!