On Exploring God's Great Big World

 

Hi, everybody! Would you believe I had all these pictures loaded to a blog form at 11:30 this morning and forgot to actually write anything until just now? Classic me. The astronauts and I have had a great start to our October. If you've seen our recently posted video, you'll know we've kept ourselves super busy learning great things. The weather the week before last was very nice, which was good news as we had to do a little bit of exploring before we could begin our ecosystem project.

 

We've been learning all about what makes ecosystems tick during this first quarter, and for our big project, we needed to put all that knowledge together to create a a self-sustaining ecosystem model.  

 

We collected rocks, moss, fungus, and pill bugs.

 

So many, many pill bugs.

 

Then we divvied out the spoils, as our supplies got a bit mixed up in the frenzy of catching all those pill bugs (a feat accomplished mostly by Astronaut RN, who is fearless), and got to model making.

 

Astronaut MD manned the pouring station, making sure everyone had just the right amount of dirt and I had just the right amount of pictures.

"Did you get it? No, don't worry, I'll just pretend to put more dirt in. Take the picture."

 

 If you've ever driven along the street the school is on, you'll have noticed the big and beautiful trees that lined the road. Sadly, those trees were cut down over the summer - much to the community's dismay. The residents of the houses surrounding our school asked to use our cafeteria for a community meeting discussing what happened to the trees and what trees would be planted, as the city was discussing importing small trees not native to Maine from out-of-state. This was a perfect community service opportunity, especially because we happen to be studying ecosystems - which involves, as you might guess, trees. This was a very last minute thing, but I think we did pretty well with the time we had! We made about five billion (i.e. a little over a hundred) cookies, which the astronauts adored doing, and two pretty cool posters (with the finishing touches put on after school by Astronaut JR and his grandmother - thanks, guys!).

 

The meeting was a total success, and our cookies and posters were a total hit! People were talking about the cookies all night, and some even asked to take a few home. They were very impressed with our students' knowledge and effort, and it felt great to make a difference and get our name out.

One of these people is the mayor of Saco. The mayor of Saco ate our cookies, guys. The mayor.

The very next day, we had our first field trip of the year. Because we're studying ecosystems, I thought it would be cool if the astronauts got to see one in action. Luckily, there's a really good example of one practically just down the road from our school:  the Scarborough Salt Marsh.

 

 

It was a really great trip. The kids met with our program guide Miss Ellie, who taught us about the different birds, plants, and fish living in the marsh and how they all work together to survive and thrive.

 

Then we went out into the marsh and got to observe the birds, plants, and fish we'd studied about in action. The astronauts had an especially great time feeling how the water of the marsh affects the firmness of the ground, as it meant they got to jump around in mud and watch Miss Ellie effortlessly bury her walking stick almost 100% in the ground. This trip was made possible by our drivers/sponsors, so I'd like to thank Mrs. D, Mr. A, and Pastor Brenda. You guys are awesome!

 

Back at school, our own little ecosystems have been doing some surviving and thriving of their own. Our grass and bean plants have grown. Our pill bugs have mostly died, but a couple are still running about and Astronaut RN's experimental slug is still up and kicking, so we consider it a success! It's been fun to watch the astronauts observe them up close, finding different ways to get different views, and compare their models to their peers'. Every week they write a little log about what they've observed, and make a prediction about how they think their ecosystems will have changed by the following week. It's been a fantastic learning experience!

 

And last but not least, we had our second cooking session of the year. The astronauts requested baked potato wedges and onions, so we had fun chopping up the potatoes and onions and mixing them around in the oil and seasoning. I have to say I was pretty impressed with their newfound willingness to get their hands dirty, as last year's Agents didn't want anything to do with anything messy. Progress? I think yes.

 

And on that final, classically Astronaut VS note, this wraps up our first October blog post. I hope you've enjoyed reading about our adventures at least half as much as we enjoyed having them! Tune in on October 19 for the next blog post, and if you visit our Facebook page on November 2 you can catch a recap of everything we'll have gotten up to in October. Have beautiful two weeks!

 

God bless,

Mia