Discovery Cruise

NOTE: I was not able to attend the discovery cruise experience due to a death in the family. I have looked at the pictures online and looks like a great way to communicate the relationship of the great lakes with students outside of the traditional classroom setting.

Touch Table

NOTE: I was not able to make it to the first touch table experience due myself having a prior commitment chaperoning my class to Chicago, but I was able to bring in an object on the next class session to share with the class and learn about the touch table experience from that session.

I believe that a student's learning is much more than just from books. The learning process sometimes can take a small side-step to allow the student to share something of themselves. To be able to share something with their classmates and be able to experience new things and objects in a new way can be a valuable resource to the classroom setting. The idea of a touch table links strongly to Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. Every student learns best in different ways. Not only are we just learning linguistically in a classroom setting, but with a touch table we are able to tap into kinesthetic, inter and intrapersonal, special intelligence and more. It again brings the learning process to a level beyond texts. With a touch table, it gives the students a way to take things that they may see everyday and give new meaning to it; To understand common items in a whole new way. This also serves as a way to bring the outside, in, when the conditions for a true field trip may not be right. Students today, especially in the urban/suburban areas are exposed to less and less nature, thinking that food comes from the grocery store and their clothes come from the department store. A bigger perspective must be gained, and a touch table experience within the classroom gives a teacher the opportunity to bring this perspective one step closer to the student. If a student can now touch, feel, think, and experience a small bit of nature within the classroom, new understandings are formed, creating and edging towards a larger outlook on how nature and the environment truly works.

In choosing my object to share with the class, I wanted to bring in something that would make people think. I had in my classroom a demonstration kit about plastic recycling called "Hands on Plastics" In this kit, it shows how all the different plastics, by code, are recycled, and what many of the uses for these plastics may be. Not everyone gets to see this step of the process. People who recycle may just see the actual plastic items as they put them into the recycling bin, and possibly see the final products after manufacturing, but it is this intermediate step that I found to be something of interest. This, I believe made a very good touch table item, as it sparked questions, made people think about where these items came from, and maybe, after seeing and experiecing it, may look at recycling a little differently.

Wetland Ecosystem

I have a special affinity to wetlands. The last nine summers of my life have been spent in and around one. Our trip on Saturday June 2, 2007 was to Metro Beach Metropark's Nature Center. It was here were we got to get up and close with at least an example of what's left of Michigan's once grand wetland ecosystems. For the last nine years, I've worked out at Metro Beach and was routinely encouraged to come out into the nature trails and experience the abundant life inside. This place allowed me to give a sense of nature inside a busy suburban area.

Over the years, of both working there and learning about wetlands in college, the interaction between all the abiotic and biotic organisms is what amazes me. I can remember learning about the complex, yet vital importance of the muskrat and cattail, and how without each other, neither would flourish. Out here I can transport myself to a place where nature can be at peace. Blue herons fly overhead, turtles take the time to bask in the sun's warm rays. The same family of swans have made this wetland home for as long as I have been coming here. This wetland, during the summer is almost a home away from home.

What was new to me, although I could swear that I have heard this somewhere in my education was the vernal pond. To see something that is so vital to the ecosystem here was very interesting. A small pool of water, only available in the spring and early summer was home to a variety of life, including many of the salamanders that call this wetland home. As the vernal pond drys and shrinks, the salamanders will grow and leave the vernal pond, making the rest of this wetland ecosystem home. Along the edges of this pond, beautiful iris would give nourishment to many birds and insects that would travel by. This place was truly special.

This is a place where many memories will stay with me. I have spent too much time with this wetland to forget how important it is and it is with this knowledge that I plan to reach out to my students and get them to grab hold and make someplace special to them.

Grassland Ecosystem

In class, it really hit hard when said that students today think that food comes from the grocery store. Students don't see the where things that they use everyday come from. It's sad that kids today are raised in an environment, that is to say...lacking environment. They see only what's presented to them and never dive deeper into where things come from. A bigger picture must be presented to them so they can stand back and take in the details.

On this outing, we looked not at only the big picture of our grassland ecosystem, but looked inwards, towards the small, the detail, the interactions between the fundamental being of this ecological niche. The first thing that struck me about the grassland ecosystem is the vast variety of organisms. It was literally "alive" with plants, insects, birds, and other animals, all interacting with the abiotic factors around them.

Standing back, looking at this from a whole, I could see the layers of plantlife that would make up the high-rise apartment complex of life. From the treeline in the background, hosting a niche to edge species, to the many levels of shrubs, bushes and flowers that loomed underneath, I could see this truly was a special place. What I focused on mostly was a smaller edge, between the mid-line shrubs and the grasses and other underbrush below.

I could see galls on the goldenrod, a host and home for many insects to survive the harsh Michigan winters. This was paired with vine upon vine of wild, thorned blackberry, gleaming above the low-level grasses with vivid white flowers. From branch to branch, flower to flower, an array of insects danced by, from anthills residing on the side of the trail to the red, white and black butterflies that fed on the nectar of the backberry plants.

But lastly, the plants here, were what truly sparked my interest. Wild strawberries and wild beans were found sprinkled among our plants. It truly was, at least for the wildlife, a grad buffet, giving them constant nourishment and a means to live deeply within the grasslands. So do we get our food from the grocery store? Well, we may buy it there, but kids today need to see this grand picture. How are they, and the bird outside both eating their beans, fruit and veggies? Maybe they need to realize, a link has been made.