Fourth Year students began their year by observing the sights, sounds, movements of the Horseshoe Lake on our first field experience of the year.
Students worked in partners to observe plants growing around Horse Lake including browning cattails, purple flowers, thistles, and black-eyed susan.
The student groups heard loud cidadas and bees buzzing overhead.
They even observed wasps and dragonflies flying and ants crawling on the boardwalk.
After reviewing the characteristics of winter twig identification, with our guest naturalist from the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes, we headed outside to collect our twig samples.
Students took photos of the bark and the twigs sampled for analysis back in the lab.
Examining the samples and using a dichotomous key for local trees, students were able to identify local local trees using only the twigs!
Students prepared presentations for parents on protists, fungi, and moss.
In the field, we discovered nearly perfectly green mosses, complete with sporophytes.
Some mosses
were hiding UNDER the snow!
sciencemontessori 