outdoor.htm

Kyle

The Outdoor Classroom

My topic is life at the outdoor classroom. I picked this topic because I thought it would be fun and I would learn about some new animals in the stream, ponds, and forest like insects, mammals, and birds.

My question is, what is the life of the outdoor classroom? I thought of this because

Kids Inquiry Conference (KIC) wanted some people to do this and I thought it would be interesting. Also, I could compare with other schools.

Did you know that we have had life for billions of years? That would make the world very old. Over half of the world's oxygen is produced by algae. Living creatures need oxygen to live. We observed that some ants fly like carpenter ants. For people and animals to live they need water, food, and shelter. Animals get food by hunting other animals. For shelter they build, dig, and cut. People hunt and buy food from a store; a thing animals can't do. For shelter we build it ourselves, pay people to, or buy a house. Did you know that some animals become extinct? Extinct is when there is no type of that kind of animal in existence.

Also, did you know that some stream animals can tell if the water is clear, clean and dirty. We went and observed that the water was in-between clear and clean, so that means we are taking care of the stream and we are not polluting the stream. There are some cool stream life like stonefly, caddisfly, water penny, riffle beetle, mayfly, gilled snail, dobsonfly, crayfish, sowbug, scud, alderfly larva, fishfly larva, damselfly, watersnipe fly larva, crane fly, beetle larva, dragonfly, clam, aquatic worm, midge fly larva, blackfly larva, leech, pouch snail, pond snail and other snails.

To answer the question, what is the life of the outdoor classroom, I did the following. First, I went to the outdoor classroom. Next, I went sweeping for bugs and insects. Sweeping is when you get a net and go left to right or right to left touching grass on the top. Then I went back to the classroom and identified what I caught sweeping with a field guide.

Later we went back and did a stream study. A stream study is when you use tools to catch creatures in the stream. Later that day I identified the creature I caught with stream guide. Finally, we went animal watching and identified them. To find the bugs and insects, stream life, and animals I went to the woods, stream and pond, and the field.

Some facts I discovered doing the research on the life of the outdoor classroom are that some ants can fly like carpenter ants. Also, there are stoneflys, sowbugs, and some stream life we saw. Another is that we observed that swallows are black. Swallows are birds that we saw flying in the field. Finally, when you scoop really deep into the mud you catch a lot of creatures because the creatures are in the mud and the little rocks down in the water.

Kyle

Here are some suggestions when you are in 5th grade and you want to do KIC. One might be to see if rain effects what you see in the stream or does dry effect the stream life. Also, if the rain makes the stream dirty or cleaner. If you can make an antibody that kills a type of bacteria. Also, you could make a liquid bubble formula or see if coke, milk, and other stuff makes plants grow faster, slower, or not even at all.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Author: Anita Gan

Title: Ponds and Pond Life

Place of Publication: New York, New York

Publisher: Franklin Watts, Inc.

Author: Alexandra Parsons

Title: Amazing Mammals

Place of Publication: Great Britain

Publisher: Dorling Kindersley Limited

Author: John Grassy and Chuck Keene Title: First Field Guide Mammals Place of Publication: New York Publisher: Scholastic, Inc. Copyright Date: 1998