A Garden Update

Last year our garden club wrote a grant and created rain barrels to irrigate our garden. Each of the barrels was placed under and air conditioner attached to the row of portable classrooms across from our garden. Well life in an elementary school always requires flexibility! This week the last of those portable classrooms was moved off of our campus. My science lab is one of two remaining.
So we adapted and our new garden club has begun to place barrels in the center of each of our raised beds. We will still catch rain water, but through measurements begun at the start of the year, the students have come to realize exactly how much rain it takes to fill a 55 gallon rain barrel with direct precipitation and no additional run off. I believe Noah was brought up in the conversation!
However, we can fill these barrels, attach small soaker hoses and water each bed more efficiently. Less water will be required than using sprinklers, a deeper soaking will result in greater growth, and we have learned a great deal more about gardening and problem solving. I encourage everyone to make a rain barrel (for home or school) and enjoy the benefits of rain collection. And for my northern friends, please share with us how they work with snow!

The Giving Tree

Teaching in the south provides a multitude of problems when teaching the change in seasons. It doesn’t snow in Florida and we don’t have many colored leaves in the fall. Also we have birds living with us year round. Plus our literature doesn’t help much since it is typically not written for tropic climates. However you can overcome the stereotypes by adopting a tree on your campus.
At the beginning of the school year, in the heat of September, take blankets outside and lie down under a tree on your campus. Draw pictures of what you see – the leaves, squirrels, birds and insects. Record the sounds you hear and take pictures of what you see - digital cameras now make this so easy to download and share. Use twine to place a circle on the ground around the canopy of the tree and observe everything living under the tree. Create a population study by counting the various families of living things seen. Each month pay a visit to the tree. You will begin to notice that different kinds of birds come and go; the leaves will begin to change colors; and the population of insects change. Each month add a new population graph to your scrapbook.
By the end of the year you will have documented a year of change. You will see the gradual changes of insect and bird populations, changes in leaf and bark coloration, temperature changes, and precipitation levels. Conducting long range studies is an important part of becoming scientists. There are seasons in the Deep South, but sometimes you just have to go out and look for the changes.