Nature Walk

Theme: Sharing the Planet
– An inquiry into rights and responsibilities in the struggle to share finite resources with other people and with other living things.

What do you notice?

What do you wonder?

• Hannah “We were looking for interesting things in nature.”
• Kavel “We were observers.”

• Carlotta “We were making connections with things we have not seen.”
• Chanwoong “After writing we came back to class and airdropped the photos to Ms. Shemo so that we can make the movie.”

• Elena “We went outside and got some markers, pencils and papers and we looked around the place and looked for things that were interesting. we took a picture and wrote 10 interesting things we saw about it.”
• Sky “We took photos to know what we are writing about.”
• Changhyeong “Because there are small plants and we are making it bigger on the iPad.”

Next, we sat down to share our 10 observations with class buddies. We used the thinking routine Ten Times Two to help us observe with quiet eyes. The students continued to add to their observations, looking at an imagine/object from multiple perspectives. 

Then, we used twine to look for ‘connections‘ that exist between the objects we had photographed. The students explained why they were connected.

• Soil is needed to make the plant grow. 
• Some bugs eat stems, the woody bits.
• Bugs live in woody places (barks of trees).

BUT…

What if there was no more soil or wood? The students who would be affected (based on their pictures) sat down to visualise this impact.  

• All of us need soil for our plants to live!
• I (bug) have no home to live for the Winter. I will die!
• The flowers will die too because they need leaves to grow.
• And plants need leaves for shade.
• Bugs eat leaves so bugs will die. 

BUT…

What if there were no more snails? Again, the students who would be affected (based on their pictures) sat down to visualise this impact.  

• The snails will get parts of our plants and spread seeds around. 
• The bugs will die if there were no snail shells for them to hide in the Winter. 
• Everything needs other things. 

The students discussed the impact different species and plants have on each other. 

We wondered how these connections can be observed and documented. The students used post-it notes and string to connect and document their observations.

They included questions they had using a different coloured post-its. 

Next, we began to document our wonderings. We decided what concept they would be about. The students helped explain the ‘concept’ in their own words.