Welcome to Sunnyside School and Our Water Habitat Workshop

We are a 1st and 2nd grade class. Our teacher is Mrs. Rennebohm Franz.

Since 1993, her classes have been studying our local pond habitat at our city's Sunnyside Park. They started making pond observations and shared their observations through email with other I*EARN schools around the world. The pond became a water habitat project.

Our class is keeping the pond project going. We walk to the pond (which is in our school neighborhood) to make science observations every four to five weeks.

Here is a mural of the pond. (While one student talked another student pointed to the locations on the mural) You have a mural there at the museum that you can use to see what the pond looks like from a bird's eye view: the big pond, the stream, the bridge, the little pond,, the island, the red osier dogwood and willow tree on the island, the path around the pond, and the waterfall.

Since 1993, classes have made photo journals of the pond habitat.

We use all the photo journals to study how the pond has changed from 1993 to 2000!

There used to be a lot of mallard ducks and Canada geese. Here are paintings of the male and female mallard ducks. Large life-size paintings were shown) You have paintings there too. Meet our mallard ducks! Three classmates who were wearing costumes for 1) a female mallard, 2) a male mallard duck and 3) a Canada goose were introduced. The mallard ducks made the quacking call of mallards.)

Sometimes classes would see a magnificent Great Blue Heron when they went to the pond!!! Here is a life size painting of a Great Blue Heron. A life size painting of a Great Blue heron was shown.) You have a painting there too. Meet our Great Blue Heron! (A classmate wearing a Great Blue Heron costume was introduced and bowed.)

The pond water kept getting dirty.

The island was deteriorating because of muskrat burrows and storms that eroded the island shore.

There used to be a pair of black swans that the city kept at the pond in Spring, Summer and Fall. There used to be lots of Canada geese and mallards at the pond.

The female swan died after being attacked by a predator. Swans mate for life and the male swan died also.

There were fewer and fewer Canada geese and mallard ducks.

There was not much space on the island for mallards to nest.

In 1996, the class did a videoconference workshop at YouthCaN to tell students their concerns about the changes at the pond and island.

The students in New York City suggested that the class get a lot more people to care about and help restore the pond habitat.

After that conference, the class started meeting with the City Park Supervisor, Alan Davis, to help the habitat. We want to thank the YouthCaN students in 1996 for helping us learn how to take action to help the pond habitat.

Mr. Davis suggested the class give a presentation to the Parks and Recreation Committee at City Hall.

The class used photo journals, digital images, slides, artwork and poetry to encourage the committee to help them restore the island and pond water for wildlife.

The Committee and the City Council voted for funds to do the restoration project!!!

We cheered when we heard the news of their vote!!!

In August, 1999, the city rebuilt the island and cleaned the water in the big pond!

When we made our first field trip to the ponds after school started in August 1999, we were amazed to see how beautiful it looked...and to see 200 mallard ducks now at the pond!!!

They were quacking and we were too!!!!!

When the city restored the island, they built an underwater rock bridge (that you can't see unless you are told it is there) so we would have a way to get to the island to take care of it. By having the rock bridge underwater, predators and neighborhood dogs and cats couldn't easily get to the ducks and their nests on the island.

The city asked our class to help replant the island with natural grasses.

First we did research to learn what grasses mallard ducks and Canada geese would like for nesting and to eat.

We used the Internet and talked by phone with scientists at the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department to find out what we should plant on the island.

And we met with Alan Davis to make a plan for planting the grass seed. We decided to plant the grass seed in the fall.

We used hip waders and waterproof boots to get to the island.

We used a grass seeding bag to spread the seeds on the island. (A classmate showed and demonstrated the grass seeding bag.)

Then the city gave us mulch to cover the grass and protect it in the cold winter.

By this April, 2000, the island has had different kinds of tall grasses and the ducks are on the island waddling in the tall grasses. We hope they are looking for nesting places where their eggs and ducklings will be protected!!!!

We want to plant more red osier dogwood on the island (A classmate showed a live red osier dogwood shrub.) There is already a willow tree there.

And there are lots more ducks at the pond now!!!

In Fall, 1999, we learned how to do macro invertebrate sampling to study the water quality of the pond. We will keep studying the macro invertebrates.

Mrs. Susan Lewis from Washington State University's Environmental Education Program came to our classroom to tell us what macro invertebrates you will find in clean water, which ones you will find in not so clean water and which ones can survive in polluted water.

She taught us how to use these tools to do macro invertebrate sampling:

(As the tools were named, classmates took turns showing them.)

1. a "D" net for collecting macro invertebrates from the pond

2. a tub for collecting pond water

3. a turkey baster and tweezers for putting the macro invertebrates into plastic ice cube trays so you can look at them closely for identification

4. hand lens and magnifying glasses to look closely at the macro invertebrates

5. rulers to measure them

6. spray bottles to keep them moist in the plastic ice cube trays while we study them

7. identification charts to help us identify the macro invertebrates

Here are two posters of macro invertebrates that we have seen at the pond. (A classmate points to the artwork posters of larger than life-size macro invertebrates.)

In the fall, we found lots of Stonefly larva, case builder caddisfly larva, and Mayfly nymphs that were horizontally flat in the big pond.

Because these macro invertebrates can't tolerate polluted water, we knew our pond water was clean and had good quality.

This Spring, the water looked more polluted again. People had fed the ducks more bread than they could eat and there were lots of pieces of bread floating in the water. (A classmate showed a piece of white sandwich bread.) Someone even through big pizza crusts into the water! You can look at our March 2000 pond journal photo to see what that looked like. (A copy of this photo journal had been sent to New York.)

Last week, we did another macro invertebrate study and found out the water quality was now fair instead of good.

This time we found lots of cranefly larva, cadddisfly larva net spinners without a case, sowbugs, and lots of backswimmers and water boatman. These macro invertebrates can tolerate some pollution. We didn't find the macro invertebrates that need good water quality to survive.

We also found midge larva, left-handed snails, leeches and aquatic worms. These macro invertebrates can tolerate poor water quality. We didn't find any of these last fall.

So, we are going to meet with Alan Davis again to talk about the pond water quality.

he had already asked us to make signs to ask people to please not feed bread to the ducks because:

1. then they expect to be fed bread all the time and don't eat the natural food at the pond that s best for them

and

2. the bread pollutes the water

He has also asked us to make signs telling people not to dump their pet goldfish or turtles int he pond because when they do that the pond becomes over populated with fish and turtles and then the water isn't clean. All the fish and turtles can't survive.

Sometimes when we go to the pond on warm sunny days, we see turtles sunning themselves on the island.

we also want to ask the city to put large rocks around the edge of the rebuilt island so that the shore doesn't erode and wash away again.

We want to make a guidebook for people to help them identify the birds, trees and shrubs in the pond habitat.

Everytime we go to the pond to make observations, we take our classroom digital camera and sometimes we take our video camera.

At the pond, we observe the wildlife, trees, shrubs, water and weather.

We check out the water cycle. Water is pumped from the small pond to a pool above the waterfall. The water goes from the pool down the waterfall into the big pond.

Then the water from the big pond goes over a spillway into a stream that takes the water back to the little pond.

It's neat to follow the water cycle at the pond!

We count the number of mallard ducks! Sometimes we see 2000, sometimes we see about 40 and sometimes we see 10 to 12.

We take the water temperature and pH. The temperatures were about 35 degrees in winter (we had to break the ice to get the temperature) and 57 degrees early this Spring.

When we get back to our classroom, we use our digital images on our computer to make photo journals.

We use the photo journals to practice our reading and to study changes in the pond habitat. We read lots of books about ponds and birds to help us learn about water habitats. (Classmates showed pond photo journals and books about ponds and birds.)

We also use our digital images in the computer lab where we each write our own document about pond observations. We look at the slide show to help us remember what the pond habitat looked like.

We use digital images to make our water habitat web pages.

We use our Bird Print Writing Process to write our observations. Each step of the writing process is named after a bird. We do:

Puffin Prewrite

Swan Draft

Egret and Owl edit

Wren Revise

Peregrine Publish

(A classmate pointed to photos of these birds while the other classmate was naming them.)

You can read about our Bird Print Writing Process and our Water Habitat Project on our classroom web pages.

We can send our writing documents as email to other schools around the world who are studying water habitats too. You can read more about our project and some of the water habitat email on our web page.

We edit the videotape about our water habitat project using Avid Cinema software tools to select video clips, create titles and do narration.

We hope you enjoy our Pond Story videotape we have sent to you about our pond project.

We hope you have enjoyed learning about our water habitat project!

And we hope you will exchange water habitat observations with us so we can learn about your local water habitats too!