By Joe Walewski
I’ve co-taught virtual field trips for Wolf Ridge, but never as the only human. Today I shared the task with a Black-capped Chickadee and a Red Squirrel. I think it went well. For this Virtual Field Trip, Mr. G., a Glendale Elementary teacher, wanted to focus on vocabulary and scientific practices. Scientific practices: slow down, notice things, take notes, and share with others. Vocabulary: living, nonliving, kingdoms of life (plant,animal, fungus), population, community, ecosystem, symbiosis
Our 30-minute class was broken into 3 parts:
- First impressions: what do you notice as soon as you join? Sketch and label.
- Zoom out: sketch and label an evergreen forest; repeat with deciduous forest; what do you notice?
- Zoom in: sketch and label what we notice on a tree trunk; lichens and mosses.
The entire time students collected data by sketching in their science notebooks, then labeling their illustrations as we chatted about what we were seeing.