July 1998
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Presented By A Second Grade Student
Sunnyside Elementary School
Pullman, Washington, U.S.A.
A Sunnyside School Second Grader gave the opening address to an audience of several hundred teachers representing countries from around the world. Here is the text and images of his address.
INTRODUCTION Hello! I'm going
to start my talk with a poem about our water habitat
environment project. The idea for the poem came from one of
my favorite books about ocean ecology called The Sign of the
Seahorse by Graeme Base who lives in Australia. This poem
talks about our Sunnyside Pond Habitat that we study and its
island that we wanted to save. "Beyond the ken
of mortal men. beneath the wind
and sky, There lies a pond
of fish and ducks, of water by and
by. Where an island
shrinks 'cause of
muskrats gnawing, and storms both
fierce and cold, And from this
place, comes the
children's story, ready to unfold.
"
"Helping Each
Other Learn and Take Action" To learn about
our water habitat habitat in Pullman, Washington, we go to
the pond near our school. We make science
observations. We observe the ducks and other animals. We
observe changes in the island and water. We take turns
measuring the water temperature. We take
measurements of the water pH. Back in our
classroom, we do artwork of the pond. One time we saw a
great blue heron at the pond and made paintings of this
magnificent bird. After each trip to the pond,
we make a photo
journal. Using the
computer, we put photos on the pages where we want them and
we write words to describe the photos. We can look at all
the photo journals from each year to learn about changes in
the pond. We also use reference books to help us learn
things about the pond we didn't see or realize before. We
read books to learn more about plants and animals at the
pond. "Let's Look at
Our Pond Email" First, we write
about the pond
in our journals. Then a classroom volunteer helps us put our writing
onto the computer and we send our water habitat writing as email to
other schools around the world like: Novosibirsk,
Russia Uden,
Netherlands Mayaguez, Puerto
Rico Now that we have
been here in Chattanooga and seen your river water habitat,
we will send you our email too. When we sent
email to Uden, Netherlands, we said, "In October, when
we went to the pond. We saw a Great Blue Heron at the edge
of the pond...we think it was eating or looking for food. It
likes to eat fish. What kind of water habitat do you have
near you? Do you have a stream, river, pond, lake or
coean?" We get email
responses from
our ecology friends around the world. The cycle of learning from each
other by email works like this... When we send our
email to Uden, Netherlands, they learn about our pond water
habitat. Then they look and learn about their water habitat.
Then they write email to us so we can learn about water
habitats in the Netherlands. Their email told us they have a
small river called the AA. It is a very small stream. they
also told us they have waterbirds in their lakes. And that
they have a sea 80 miles away. We like reading
email!!! We read the email on our computer first and then we
print it out in reading booklets. We read the email with our
classroom reading partners.
Our Email Leads
to Taking Action!!! When we sent our
water habitat observation email messages about the island in
our pond getting smaller because of muskrat burrows, ice,
storms, and flooding, our friends at other schools around
the world encouraged us to take action and to save the
Sunnyside Pond island. They said we needed to get more
people to care about the island and pond than just
us. First, we invited Alan
Davis from the city of Pullman
to come and talk to our class about the island and pond. Alan is the
person that takes care of the ponds in our city. He
suggested we talk to the City of Pullman Parks and
Recreation Committee about the problem with the island and
ask them to help save it. We gave our
report about the island and the pond to the city.
We showed our
photo journals, our artwork of the pond and our email
messages. The
Parks and Recreation Committtee
was very interested in what we said. They listened carefully!! Our parents and
families were there with us. It was a great
meeting!!!!! After we finished
our talk, the leader of the committee told us that we had
reminded them of our community's obligation for taking care
of the pond and island and that before our talk they didn't
realize there was a problem. After we left the
meeting, the committee voted to spend city money and rebuild
the island to it's original size. We cheered when we heard
the news of their decision!!!!! When you take
action, people thank you for reminding them we all need to
care. In a thank you note to our class the committee
said: "You all are
doing a great job! Great research! Because of your
presentation, the Sunnyside Island Project is a 1999 goal!
Thank you for caring about the animals and the island. Your
research and involvement will serve our community well for
years to come!"
We invite you to
care as we have for every habitat on earth especially the
ones where you live!!!! We thank you for caring and the
ducks thank you too!!!
***All
documents on our classroom web pages are copyrighted. The text and
images are for educational use only. Please honor the integrity and
original ownership of all text, design and images. We request that
you not replicate the webpage designs nor publish the images and text
without permission. For permission contact Kristi Rennebohm Franz at
kfranz@psd267.wednet.edu
