Teachers Learning How To Make Videos

One of the things we have integrated into our blog, curriculum, and culture at Edison is the power of video. What used to cost multiple tens of thousands of dollars can now be created with easily accessible laptops, hand-held cameras, and a vision.

August 18-20, 2009, we had the wonderful opportunity to have video journalism training with an expert in the field. Robb Montgomery of Visual Editors provided three days of training to many of our staff. This video provides an overview of the training and the kind of rich media you can expect to see from our teachers and students as we continue to Make A Difference!

Classroom Video Journalism from Anthony Gettig on Vimeo.

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.