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.
Seeds keep hidden inside a secret life and what makes them grow.
Students worked with lima bean seeds and native plant seeds they prepared and planted to understand the different shapes, colors, and parts of Chelone glabra (white turtlehead) and Asclepias incarnata (swamp milkweed).
Seeds need water and sun to grow. Some seeds need dark, cold, and a wet substrate.
Students researched the needs of the seeds.
They discovered some seeds needed cold stratification. In order to mimic this for the seeds, students mixed water and sand before adding the seeds to bags.
After the seed stratification bags were ready, students clearly labeled the seed’s name- scientific and common names and date of readiness for planting.
The seeds were ready for the cold stratification time period- in the science lab refrigerator.
Later in the spring, we will grow theses seeds and eventually they will be planted in the Marsh.
We’ll check back on these seeds in 30, 60, and 120 days!
This project is part of a partnership with the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes and supported by GreenWorks! from the American Forest Foundation.
In the field, we discovered nearly perfectly green mosses, complete with sporophytes.
Some mosses
were hiding UNDER the snow!
sciencemontessori 