Part 3: Curriculum and Instruction
Across The Grade Levels for School Year 2014-2015
Kindergarten:
The Kindergarten Science curriculum, based on the Next Generation of Science Standards, has a component that focuses on our impact on the environment. Thus, throughout the year, we discuss with the students the need to lessen our impact by recycling, reusing, and reducing items. For instance, in our engineering design process lessons, the student and teachers send in recycled items to create designs. We also use recycled paper in our Writing and Science Centers. In the fall, our students visit the Howard County Conservancy to learn about living and non-living things and how they interact. In the spring, when our students learn about ecosystems, they go to visit Sharp’s Farm, a sustainable farm in Howard County. The students learn about worms in the classrooms. When we visit the farm, the students make a compost pile and add worms (provided by the farm). They use the soil that has been created, with the help of worms, to plant a plant that they could take home. We take pictures throughout the day. In the Technology classes, our students upload pictures to create a booklet about the farm and/or composting. These curricular connections allow us to have hands on, authentic experiences with our students and their families about our impact on the environment.
In Kindergarten, we strive to make the lessons involving the environment as inquiry-based as possible. The students are encouraged to ask questions as they interact with their natural environment. These questions are used to create lessons that are authentic and discovery based. For instance, in the spring, our students were learning about animal habitats, so we took out the students to the courtyard butterfly garden. They sketched what they noticed about the gardens around them and the teachers wrote down the questions they asked. These questions were incorporated into the lessons, so that the children were engaged in authentic experiences with nature.
First Grade:
We explored and discussed the parts and behaviors of living things (animals and plants) and the major requirements for survival. Then we planted seeds with different scenarios (with and without water, with and w/o sunlight, with and without air) and made observations over several weeks. We also discussed the human impacts that could alter the natural environment of living things, such as air and water pollution and how we can better reserve our natural environment. We also did a couple of lessons on Human and Natural Resources and how humans use natural products on Earth for human use. The students' curriculum focuses on worms and their habitats, you will find pictures of student involvement in these studies below.
Second Grade:
As part of the second grade science curriculum, the students learned about the Butterfly Life Cycle. The students studied and observed Painted Lady Butterfly larvae which hatched into caterpillars. They feed the caterpillars, watched them grow and form into chrysalis. After several days, the butterflies emerged and the students released them in the butterfly garden. This gave the students the opportunities to observe real life habitats and a renewed appreciation for living things in their environment. Staff from the Howard County Conservancy presented an In School Field trip on the parts of the butterfly and the life cycle.
Third Grade:
As part of a unit about plants, classes were encouraged to visit and maintain the courtyard vegetable and butterfly garden.
Fourth Grade:
In the 4th grade, we work on Core Clicks nonfiction articles about various subjects. We read the articles, answer questions about them, analyze them, and relate them to our own lives in many ways. One article that all the 4th grade teachers decided to use is “Green Kids.” This article is about children who decide to help make their schools, towns, and the earth greener all year round instead of just on Earth Day. After assigning and completing this reading material, we discussed the many ways to help our environment. The students were able to come up with other means of conserving animals, forests, parks, and helping to keep the earth green. In addition, they were assigned a project where they created a Venn Diagram, showing the ways they are like the students in the article in the ways they conserve, and other ways they help our environment that are different. They were excited about this project and became motivated to do more.
Fifth Grade:
The fifth grade science curriculum has a strong focus on the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The students study different ways to prevent pollution from entering the day and what they can do to make a difference. They even create a model and construct a plan to plant riparian forest buffers to stop pollution into our waterways. They discuss the impact of pollution on living things and how important it is to take care of the environment around them.
Kindergarten:
The Kindergarten Science curriculum, based on the Next Generation of Science Standards, has a component that focuses on our impact on the environment. Thus, throughout the year, we discuss with the students the need to lessen our impact by recycling, reusing, and reducing items. For instance, in our engineering design process lessons, the student and teachers send in recycled items to create designs. We also use recycled paper in our Writing and Science Centers. In the fall, our students visit the Howard County Conservancy to learn about living and non-living things and how they interact. In the spring, when our students learn about ecosystems, they go to visit Sharp’s Farm, a sustainable farm in Howard County. The students learn about worms in the classrooms. When we visit the farm, the students make a compost pile and add worms (provided by the farm). They use the soil that has been created, with the help of worms, to plant a plant that they could take home. We take pictures throughout the day. In the Technology classes, our students upload pictures to create a booklet about the farm and/or composting. These curricular connections allow us to have hands on, authentic experiences with our students and their families about our impact on the environment.
In Kindergarten, we strive to make the lessons involving the environment as inquiry-based as possible. The students are encouraged to ask questions as they interact with their natural environment. These questions are used to create lessons that are authentic and discovery based. For instance, in the spring, our students were learning about animal habitats, so we took out the students to the courtyard butterfly garden. They sketched what they noticed about the gardens around them and the teachers wrote down the questions they asked. These questions were incorporated into the lessons, so that the children were engaged in authentic experiences with nature.
First Grade:
We explored and discussed the parts and behaviors of living things (animals and plants) and the major requirements for survival. Then we planted seeds with different scenarios (with and without water, with and w/o sunlight, with and without air) and made observations over several weeks. We also discussed the human impacts that could alter the natural environment of living things, such as air and water pollution and how we can better reserve our natural environment. We also did a couple of lessons on Human and Natural Resources and how humans use natural products on Earth for human use. The students' curriculum focuses on worms and their habitats, you will find pictures of student involvement in these studies below.
Second Grade:
As part of the second grade science curriculum, the students learned about the Butterfly Life Cycle. The students studied and observed Painted Lady Butterfly larvae which hatched into caterpillars. They feed the caterpillars, watched them grow and form into chrysalis. After several days, the butterflies emerged and the students released them in the butterfly garden. This gave the students the opportunities to observe real life habitats and a renewed appreciation for living things in their environment. Staff from the Howard County Conservancy presented an In School Field trip on the parts of the butterfly and the life cycle.
Third Grade:
As part of a unit about plants, classes were encouraged to visit and maintain the courtyard vegetable and butterfly garden.
Fourth Grade:
In the 4th grade, we work on Core Clicks nonfiction articles about various subjects. We read the articles, answer questions about them, analyze them, and relate them to our own lives in many ways. One article that all the 4th grade teachers decided to use is “Green Kids.” This article is about children who decide to help make their schools, towns, and the earth greener all year round instead of just on Earth Day. After assigning and completing this reading material, we discussed the many ways to help our environment. The students were able to come up with other means of conserving animals, forests, parks, and helping to keep the earth green. In addition, they were assigned a project where they created a Venn Diagram, showing the ways they are like the students in the article in the ways they conserve, and other ways they help our environment that are different. They were excited about this project and became motivated to do more.
Fifth Grade:
The fifth grade science curriculum has a strong focus on the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The students study different ways to prevent pollution from entering the day and what they can do to make a difference. They even create a model and construct a plan to plant riparian forest buffers to stop pollution into our waterways. They discuss the impact of pollution on living things and how important it is to take care of the environment around them.
School years 2013-2015: In addition to learning grade level curriculum objectives, students in our ALS class learn to follow a sequence of tasks to complete a job. One of their jobs is to collect recyclables from our small recycling wastebaskets and bins in classrooms throughout the building and deposit the materials in our "Big Blue" recycle cans. A shopping cart is easily pushed from room to room to collect the recyclables before emptying it into the large recycle cans.
Spring 2013 & Spring 2014: Kindergarten classes take a field trip to Sharp's Farm every year during Earth Day week. In addition to seeing animals and learning about a farm, they learn about worms and composting. The Sharp's Farm visit was included in a book created by the kindergarten teachers about the year's activities. Pictures and text about the information learned during the farm visit were included. The book is available to students throughout the school year and is shared with families during Kindergarten Registration.
March/ April 2014: The first grade team got to investigate and examine worms to apply the information they were learning in the classroom.
May/June 2013 & 2014: The second grade team released their painted ladies butterflies into our courtyard.
School years 2012-2014: Third grade classes used our computer lab and explored the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) website. The students increased their awareness of potential problems in our school and identified some solutions. The next step will be to prioritize the problems and implement solutions.
http://www.nrdc.org/
Overview:
The Green Squad is an interactive web project of the NRDC in collaboration with The Healthy School Network. Third grade students learn how to make sure their school is a safe healthy place that doesn’t hurt the environment. The interactive website allows the students to find out what is wrong with the school environment and helps them decide what can be done to improve the school’s environment both inside and out.
Mission:
Your School, Your Health and the Environment: The supplies your school uses and many of its practices affect the environment in and around your school, your community and even the rest of the world. You may find some problems with the way your school is doing things.
What You Can Do:
Start by touring the interactive website to learn about potential problems and solutions to them. Then investigate at your own school. If you discover an environmental or health problem, you can use the examples and advice from the website to help solve it.
What Your School Can Do:
School officials and staff can keep your school running smoothly without hurting your health or the environment. For example, they can find ways to keep bugs away without using chemical pesticides.
http://www.nrdc.org/
Overview:
The Green Squad is an interactive web project of the NRDC in collaboration with The Healthy School Network. Third grade students learn how to make sure their school is a safe healthy place that doesn’t hurt the environment. The interactive website allows the students to find out what is wrong with the school environment and helps them decide what can be done to improve the school’s environment both inside and out.
Mission:
Your School, Your Health and the Environment: The supplies your school uses and many of its practices affect the environment in and around your school, your community and even the rest of the world. You may find some problems with the way your school is doing things.
What You Can Do:
Start by touring the interactive website to learn about potential problems and solutions to them. Then investigate at your own school. If you discover an environmental or health problem, you can use the examples and advice from the website to help solve it.
What Your School Can Do:
School officials and staff can keep your school running smoothly without hurting your health or the environment. For example, they can find ways to keep bugs away without using chemical pesticides.
April/ May 2013: Third graders helped clean up the community courtyard and garden outside:
School years 2012-2014: Morning Announcements – Words to Live By
Real learning takes place when the assignments are meaningful and relevant. In third grade, students increase their fluency for reading aloud using short passages about the environment. During the month of April, the students take turns selecting one of these passages to read as a short announcement telling students and staff how they can help keep the environment safe and healthy. The students are given the announcement (passage) a week before and practice their fluency before reading it aloud during the morning announcements. Not only did the students increase their read aloud fluency, but they learned how to protect the environment. |
A typical morning announcement appears below:
“There’s no need to resort to commercial herbicides to get rid of weeds, awakened by warmer spring weather. Squirt them with lemon juice or vinegar, or scald them with boiling water. Keep in mind that the toughest ones may need two applications.” |
School years 2012-2014: Fourth grade classes in Art studied endangered species and expressed what they learned in an Andy Warhol unit. The students shared their artwork and stories about their endangered animal with each other. The artwork was displayed throughout the school and was featured at the Waverly Evening of Excellence in 2014. This year's artwork will be featured at the 2014 Evening of Excellence with students available to tell visiting community members about their endangered animal.
Winter 2014: Our fifth grade Green School Club met early in the year to plan activities for this school year. They decided they wanted to educate students in other grades about the importance of participating in the Terracycle program. They decided they would make a video explaining how to properly recycle glue sticks and Capri Suns and take it to the different grade level teams. The committee worked in small groups to develop a script and then filmed. The YouTube link to a few of these commercials can be found on the summary sheet.
Professional Development
Spring of 2012: A Green School Committee member, Shari Haddaway, took a graduate level class in the Authentic Integration of the Science Curriculum. In this course, the graduate students were asked to teach a Science unit using the Project Approach. This inquiry-based means of instruction was provided to Kindergarten students through the exploration of the courtyard butterfly garden. The instruction was provided based on questions that the students shared. The students learned about why specific plants were placed in the garden and what they could do to encourage butterflies to revisit it. The students were not only able to learn about butterflies, their habitats, and what they needed to live, but also about their own impact on the environment around them.
Fall 2014: The entire staff participated in a professional development event during the first week of school put on by the Howard County Conservancy. The Conservancy wanted our staff to know how to use the navigation systems and technology by geocaching around the school environment. They encouraged staff to use these tools with their students, so they could interact with the environment. Teams worked together to explore the school grounds making them aware of their surroundings. See pictures of this activity below:
Fall 2014: Our school administrators met with our custodial staff concerning energy
conservation and our new recycling program. We recognized the huge role that the custodians have in Waverly becoming a Green School. They gained an understanding of the recycling program and the need to conserve energy beyond the student day. They became fully invested in Waverly becoming a Green School. The members that attended this meeting were: Wendy Cain, William Dunn, Robert Tolliver, Kathy Jacobs, Lisa Alsheire, Beth Eisentraut, Wendy Nelson, and the entire Green School committee.
Spring 2014: Alicia Moore from the Howard County Recycling Office came to Waverly to meet with every grade in our cafeteria during lunches. She shared a short presentation with the students about items in their lunches that could be recycled and the items that were trash. She then assisted the students with their clean-up. Lunch monitors, paraeducators, custodians, and teachers were present during Ms. Moore's presentation so they could provide follow-up support to students at lunch time. This also gave teachers the information they needed to provide recycling extension lessons in their classrooms. Teachers living in Howard County learned what could go in their blue recycling cans provided by the county. Small signs prepared by the Howard County Recycling Office were posted in classrooms and in staff areas near recycling bins and trash cans to further inform students and staff about items that can be recycled. One example of a follow-up activity are the boards created with recyclables and trash that were placed in the cafeteria recycling bins to assist students. These boards closely resembled the boards shared by Ms. Moore.
Fieldscope Webinar (January 2015):
Some members of our staff attended a webinar on how to navigate through Fieldscope. It is an interactive map that highlights sustainable practices for schools in the Mid-Atlantic region. The information that was uploaded promotes school efforts in finding others to help with school projects and to examine the school's impact on environmental health and literacy. The members that participated were Carmela Loomis and Shari Haddaway. Below you can find a certificate of completion:
Some members of our staff attended a webinar on how to navigate through Fieldscope. It is an interactive map that highlights sustainable practices for schools in the Mid-Atlantic region. The information that was uploaded promotes school efforts in finding others to help with school projects and to examine the school's impact on environmental health and literacy. The members that participated were Carmela Loomis and Shari Haddaway. Below you can find a certificate of completion:
Watershed Presentation(March 2015):
Karen Nook and Woody Merkle from the Watershed Stewards Academy came to present a professional development experience to our staff . The Green School Committee attended, but it was open up to everyone. They assessed the school grounds and shared this data. In addition to sharing the results, they shared seven simple steps to reduce storm water impacts. We have plans to collaborate with them to get a rain barrel for our garden and a future project with the students in the Green School Club. Below you will find pictures from the presentation and a staff sign-in sheet listing all that attended:
Karen Nook and Woody Merkle from the Watershed Stewards Academy came to present a professional development experience to our staff . The Green School Committee attended, but it was open up to everyone. They assessed the school grounds and shared this data. In addition to sharing the results, they shared seven simple steps to reduce storm water impacts. We have plans to collaborate with them to get a rain barrel for our garden and a future project with the students in the Green School Club. Below you will find pictures from the presentation and a staff sign-in sheet listing all that attended:
Celebrations
Green Magic Show - Spring 2014
Our PTA supported our Green School efforts by sponsoring the Green Magic Show through their cultural arts funding. We held two assemblies so that the entire school could enjoy the show.
Spring 2013 & Spring 2014: Second grade science curriculum includes the raising of butterflies from a chrysalis to a butterfly. Second grade plans a huge celebration to celebrate everything the 2nd graders learn in the science unit and to release the butterflies. This year, the butterflies will be released in Waverly's butterfly garden.
Spring 2013: We celebrated rain forest birds created by our second grade students in their art classes by displaying their artwork at the Mall in Columbia and in the Social Justice Show at the Howard County Center for the Arts. The lesson used is posted below on the left with pictures from the display on the right.
|
Spring 2014: Earth Week
The entire Waverly community participated in an "Earth Week" to celebrate Earth day. Each day there were various activities to get the community involved and active in helping the environment. Below are pictures of students and teachers picking up trash around the school during their recess time.
The entire Waverly community participated in an "Earth Week" to celebrate Earth day. Each day there were various activities to get the community involved and active in helping the environment. Below are pictures of students and teachers picking up trash around the school during their recess time.
America Recycles Sculpture Project:
Students were encouraged to participate in a recycling sculpture project. At home they would make a sculpture of some sort out of recycled materials they found around the house. We had about 40 participants! The sculptures were put on display in the media center for everyone to enjoy. To the right you can find the permission slip that was emailed to parents. |
|
GreeNEWit Assembly
Gabriel Bustos came to Waverly to share a presentation on energy efficiency, renewable energy, environmental and water conservation. He shared many easy tips with the students and challenged them to become more environmentally friendly.
Below you will find pictures of the presentation and a certificate of becoming a GreeNEWit school:
Gabriel Bustos came to Waverly to share a presentation on energy efficiency, renewable energy, environmental and water conservation. He shared many easy tips with the students and challenged them to become more environmentally friendly.
Below you will find pictures of the presentation and a certificate of becoming a GreeNEWit school: