Ms. Ferrentino’s 5th Grade Classroom Blog

On Wednesday May 7 and Thursday May 8, the 5th graders from Nickerson and East Belfast Schools went to Tanglewood Environmental camp to engage in a field study on ecosystems. Before we all headed out, however, we read about various aspects of ecosystems including types of habitats, population, and human impact on the environment. We read about the watershed journey of Linus Loon as he traveled from lake to stream to bog to estuary to ocean encountering the all knowing gnomes along the way. In addition, Nickerson 5th graders are planning to lead the school in an Earth Day Celebration on Tuesday, June 3rd. Some activities the 5th graders will be teaching are: a pond/creek scoop, make a compost bin for the 5th grade garden, make a watershed model to demonstrate protecting watersheds from pollution and eutrophication, a skit on nonpoint source pollution and clean up, parts/functions of a plant with planting a seed, a water purification demonstration and experiment. We may also have a bird idenification and forestry/apple orchard station. We hope to gain some post-Tanglewood experience by conducting field studies on the campus nature trail and stream. We are also turning over the soil in our garden to get it ready for planting later this week. Thanks to Jason and Jordan for doing most of this work for us. Students have started germinating their pumpkin, bean, and sunflower seeds. Sam and Austin have planted strawberry plants.

added by Ethan

Some of the things at Tanglewood students learned was about ecology in general, but in detail they learned about how salmon migrate to the ocean to spawn then return to the river they came from. They also learned about bats echolocation. They learned this by playing a game called Bat and Moth.

Some of the activities (games) they did was a game called the Owl Game. This game taught students how owls use their ears (and that one of the owls ears are higher then the other). The other games were played in individual groups. Such as Camouflage, Each-One-Teach-One, Bat and Moth, and the Tree Game.

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