Fieldwork and Expedition Highlights - 2005/2006 School Year
Grade 6 Expedition: What's The Story of Your Salad?
A salad comes from the supermarket, right? Not if you ask one of the 6th graders here at McAuliffe Regional. Our students have investigated how common and not-so-common (rutabaga, anyone?) fruits and vegetables get from soil to table, and about what it means to eat food that travels 3000 miles as opposed to 3 miles. Each team formed a relationship with a local organic farm and spent four weeks visiting and learning about these farms. They helped a farmer use integrated pest management techniques to rid his turnips of maggots and studied how his techniques differ from traditional pesticide use. They collected soil samples and learned how composting takes place and how the nutrients in the ground make their way through different plants, coming to understand the relationship between plant structures and functions as they did so. Students came at these topics from a variety of angles - a typical assignment could involve careful lab work followed by a piece of creative writing in which kids imagined that they were parts of a giant plant. Kids will wrap up this expedition by authoring a scientific field guide to each of their farms in which they will explain the results of their soil testing, provide annotated scale drawings depicting layout of crops and projected crop rotations, and explain the life cycles of crops in which their farm specializes.
Grade 7 Expedition: How Does Innovation Lead to Less Work and More Play?
At McAuliffe Regional, we are proud to say that our 7th grade floor has been the scene of a gruesome death. Students returned from lunch one day to find that they had been assigned to be detectives in the case of Otzi, an iceman who had met his end in the Austrian Alps thousands of years ago. They carefully examined the corpse and reviewed photographs of the scene. They read secondary source material and discussed how it supported or conflicted with conclusions they had drawn from their own investigation. Finally, they combined this information into a conclusion about how Otzi had died. This served as a springboard into an examination of how Otzi and others of his time - Australopithicus afarensis, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, and Homo sapiens sapiens - might have lived. Students conducted basic physics experiments to determine which tools were most effective for early humans, and why. Some launched arrows, dug in the ground with pointed sticks, wove bags to carry rocks, and smashed nails with primitive hammers. Others transported a precious statue across a river using simple machines. Kids then visited Harvard University’s Peabody Museum to learn about how working historians and scientists represent their findings for the public before creating the McAuliffe Museum of Natural History to show off their own depictions of the most important innovations used by early hominids.
Grade 8 Expedition: How do we balance our bodies' needs and desires with external pressures? How does an epidemic affect a group of people? Why do humans live longer in 2005 than in 1405?
Eighth graders tackled all these questions as they studied biology, basic epidemiology, and medieval history this fall. Students understood the spread of the Black Death by mapping population, trade routes, and the spread of the disease. They wrote historical fiction about the lives of people at different levels of the feudal system and how different systems of government and commerce affected people in all social classes. They visited the Worcester Art museum to see medieval paintings depicting the people’s response to the Plague while it was actually going on; they returned to school and worked to capture their own ideas in writing and artwork. To understand how diseases and nutrition impact each of us individually, they built models of the digestive system and visited local restaurants to measure calories and nutrients in the foods they were most likely to choose and then comparing those results to what they had learned about what their bodies actually need to function well. They burned marshmallows to watch empty calories go up in smoke and will be writing nutritional guides to local eateries. Some students will also present a public service announcement and theatrical performance about how different nutrients impact our bodies at the molecular level.
Fieldwork and Expedition Highlights - 2004/2005 School Year
Grade 6 Expedition: What Makes a Nourishing Environment?
This 6th grade expedition used this question as a lens for science and social studies content. In science, the expedition focused on the content of interdependence of organisms, biodiversity, photosynthesis, and life cycles. In social studies, the expedition focused on the content of understanding cultures from around the world, issues of hunger in developing countries, and the growth and settlement of cultures along rivers. Fieldwork included the Merrimack River in New Hampshire, a New England fishery, the Franklin Park Zoo, the Wellesley College Greenhouses, and Overlook Farms Global Village which was an overnight experience. In each fieldwork site, students collected data and synthesized their information to address these standards. This expedition also included a science lab, Interdependence Investigation, which was an investigation of the relationship between Brassica plants and Brassica butterflies, both of which evolved through their entire life cycles.
Grade 7 Expedition: Can People Control Evolution?
Although the Spring expeditions varied by team, they all focused around evolution. One seventh grade team learned about triclosan, the bacteria-killing chemical in antibacterial soap. The students conducted a lab to see if anti-bacterial soaps actually removed more bacteria from their hands than traditional soaps. One field work opportunity was going to the local hospital where students learned about sterilization procedures. Wearing actual protective clothing that surgeons wear during surgical operations the students "scrubbed in" at a surgical scrub sink. To supplement their research a guest speaker, an expert in bacterial resistance from MIT, came to the school to speak with the students. Based on their findings the students wrote letters to politicians and corporations about bacteria and its resistance to triclosan and other antibiotics. The students summarized their findings and experiences by writing a research paper about triclosan and natural selection.
To learn more about evolution, the entire grade traveled to New York City to visit the American Museum of Natural History. In addition to their excellent fossil halls, they also visited a special exhibit on recent paleontology findings, including models of feathered dinosaurs. In the fossil halls, students learned about evolutionary relationships, and how a cladogram can show how species are related through common ancestors. One team, inspired by the trip, made a permanent cladogram of vertebrates covering an entire classroom wall. Students researched an animal, designed and created a stencil, then painted the animal on the wall. The research and explanations of evolution, cladograms, and evolutionary ancestry have been preserved in a binder in that classroom.
Grade 8 Expedition: What is the Current Condition of Beaverdam Brook Sub-watershed?
One eighth grade team reorganized into two to four person teams to conduct an in-depth study of a topic within the Beaverdam Brook Sub-watershed. The topics included construction of a relief map of Beaverdam Brook Sub-watershed; a shoreline survey or a land survey of the sub-watershed; measurements of dissolved oxygen content; the biochemical oxygen demand, the pH, or the dissolved and suspended solids at nine sites along Beaverdam Brook; and assessment of the change in biodiversity, or the change in flow and volume discharge. Each team collaboratively performed field and laboratory work, shared data and calculated results. Individually, each student wrote a report for their portfolio and each team collaboratively prepared a Power Point presentation.
Finally, the full team of twenty-eight students presented their Power Point presentations to an audience of about 80 people consisting of their parents, siblings, staff, prospective parents, representatives from the Framingham and Natick Department of Public Works, a Selectman of Natick, and a representative of the SuASCo watershed.