Category: Science

The Ocean Wise Sea Dome Experience

On Wednesday, we had some wonderful visitors from Ocean Wise*. The guides brought a Sea Dome, an inflatable six-metre dome that projects a 360-degree cinematic video! We watched a short video on climate change and looked at animals in the ocean. We were able to view tropical reefs, sea ice in the Arctic, and many amazing animals up-close! We saw an octopus, a sea turtle, a whale, a shark, jellyfish and more.

After the sea dome experience, students were guided through two other stations, looking at artifacts and images. Our guide showed us turtles and coral reefs from around the world. Then, we looked at a huge Arctic floor map. Our guide talked about the loss of sea ice and its impact on the animals (e.g. Polar bears, seals) that lived there. We even saw and touched a 9 foot narwhal tooth!

Ocean Wise is a non-profit organization which aims to protect and restore our world’s oceans. Thanks to Ms. Sue for organizing this.

Ask your child, what was their favorite part of the presentation?

 

Fall Leaves

Our Fall inquiry started with many wonders.  We wonder:

“Why do they (leaves) change from green?”

“Do leaves change every season?”

“Why do the leaves fall down?”

“Why do the leaves change colour?”

“How does it get colder?”

“Why are the leaves red?”

On our nature walk we explored around Parkcrest Park and looked for different kinds of leaves.  We sorted them into Fall colours (brown, yellow, red, orange) and green and then tried rubbing leaves on paper to see if they leave a colour.  We were pretty amazed to see nature colours on our paper!

We worked as a team and sorted leaves into different sizes- small, medium, big, biggest.

As scientists, we investigated why leaves change colours in the fall. First, we made some guesses.

“The weather is cold.”

“We have less sun.”

“It rains a lot.”

Then, we sorted the fall leaves by colour, ripped the leaves into bits and covered it with rubbing alcohol. We put coffee filters into the leaf and rubbing alcohol mixture and allowed it to sit long enough to absorb the liquid. As the liquid travels up the coffee filter it separates all the colors that were inside the leaf.

We learned that during fall, the days get shorter so the leaves don’t get enough sunlight and the green chlorophyll disappears from the leaves.  As the green fades away, we begin to see yellow, orange, red and/or brown colours. Small amounts of these colors have been in the leaves all along!

Symmetrical drawings of our leaves

Parts of a Leaf

Our Leaf People

The Leaf Man goes where the wind blows…

 

Our Leaf People flew to a lot of places and saw many things.  Some flew to a pumpkin patch, some went to a forest, one went to a big city, a couple went to a farm and a few flew home.   Please ask your child to tell you their Leaf Man story 🙂

Pumpkin Patch

 

We had an amazing experience visiting the Aldor Acres Pumpkin Patch in Langley!  It was a wet day, but that didn’t stop us from having fun!  For some of the students, it was their very first pumpkin patch experience.

We hopped onto a tractor-pulled wagon and headed over to the field to pick our pumpkins to take home!

The children were so excited to see and touch the animals. We saw so many – sheep, horses, piglets, chicks, bunnies, goats, llamas, donkeys, chickens, puppies, a giant cow and more!

At the end of the school day, we had a sharing circle and each student shared their favorite part of the trip!

Here are a few things that were said:

“I love playing in the hay pile!”

“I liked looking for my pumpkin!”

“Big Bob the cow was so big!”

“petting the rabbits!”

“the bus ride”

“petting the pigs and puppies”

If you ask your child to tell you what their favourite moment was, feel free to share their answer in the comments!

A big Thank You to our parent volunteers who were able to come and supervise groups of students. Thank you for helping out! Also, thanks to Ms. Gourlay for organizing and booking this trip!

Beecher Park Fun

Thank you to our PAC parents for organizing Parkcrest Fun Day on Wednesday!

The sun came out and we enjoyed a beautiful walk through the luscious forest of the Andrew-Leong Green trail. Students saw salmonberries, many plants and wildflowers, and walked along the creek.

At Beecher Park, there was lots of time to play and relax!

 

Barnet Marine Park

It was a beautiful day at Barnet Marine Park and all the kids had so much fun!  In the classroom, we have been learning about a few ocean animals (sea star, jellyfish, shark, orca whale), so this field trip was a great opportunity for them to explore more about marine life in our local environment.  What a great experience to see so many sea stars (starfish) under the dock and flipping rocks to look for crabs!

Thank you to all parents who volunteered to drive and supervise students, and families who came to join us!  We hope you all had a great time at the beach!

Forest Animal Habitats

 

Our class ended our Winter theme unit by building homes for some of our forest animals.  Each group chose their animal(s), gathered materials and then built the home together.  We were so impressed with how everyone worked collaboratively and helped each other out! Great teamwork, Division 12!

Bird Feeders and Nature Walk with Ms. Paul

 

Last week our class made some treats for the birds in our Parkcrest park.  Ms. Paul brought in suet mixed with seed mix and we covered our pinecones with the mixture.  We then went outside and hid the bird treats around our park for the birds to find!

During our nature walk, we found an owl pellet! Pellets are the undigested parts of a bird’s food, such as hair or bones, which are regurgitated (coughed up through the beak). We all thought that was pretty cool!