-Planning Calendar: Discussing a timeline for our trips and release schedule in the fall--
allowing for rain dates or "high river" reschedule time.
-Videotaping: We had three student cameras and one video camera shared by the classes to
document our experiences.
allowing for rain dates or "high river" reschedule time.
-Videotaping: We had three student cameras and one video camera shared by the classes to
document our experiences.
-Taking Notes: Using guest speakers and the Internet students researched their questions about
salmon and macroinvertebrates.
-Reflection: At several points in planning our project we stopped for class discussion. We even
proposed our ideas to our principal, talked over roadblocks, asked
questions, and brainstormed solutions.
-Using Maps: Students mapped our community and added each area we come from: parts of
Sterling Heights, Clinton Township, and Shelby.
-Walking tour: We explored our school groups 360 degrees and made observations on our
clipboards. We identified "problem areas" we could address in our project.
-Conducting a Survey: Once we thought of a community garden, we surveyed parents and
grandparents to see if they had plant knowledge, tools, or knew of experts
we could contact for help.
-Decision making: Once we decided on the community garden we weighed the pros and cons.
Unfortunately problems with rain drainage on our playground put our garden
to a halt, so we decided instead to pursue waders and nets for our water
quality testing days in the spring and fall.
We were so excited when our waders and nets arrived in the mail!
-Guest Speakers: We scheduled Ms. Amanda from the Clinton River Watershed council to
come in and teach us about macroinvertebrates. Ms. Erin also came in
for a survey and gave us a brief overview of SEMIS as we shared our
project with her.
-Writing Thank-you notes: We sent them to the Clinton River Watershed Council for letting us
borrow their waders and nets in the fall--we could not have done our bug
search without their help!
-Media Attention: With the help of our district we had four different newspapers at out release!
-Speaking in Public: Three students presented our project at the SEMIS Youth Conference in
May at Eastern Michigan University.
-Writing a Grant Proposal: Students assisted in our SEMIS grant proposal writing: one for our
community garden and a rewrite for our water quality monitoring equipment.