Grades 5 and 6: Birds, binoculars, and builds

Our grade 5 and 6 science students are reaching the end of the their experimental design "unit".  I use the word "unit" loosely, because really it is a thread that will weave it's way through the curriculum all year long.  It's that foundational piece at the beginning of the year to make sure all the students are correctly identifying variables, choosing the appropriate graphs to show their data, and constructing evidence-based explanations.  Once the students have shown their competencies in these areas we will move on to designing our own unique investigations around birds and bird feeding behavior.  

As part of our bird study, the 5th grade class is installing some bird feeder areas.  We had the Audubon Society visit on Monday, and while we have a HUGE campus, we didn't have a lot of luck finding many birds.  The solution is to give them food and water.  Build it and they will come!  So our 5th grade students are working on identifying some areas that would make effective feeding areas based on the feedback we received from our visitors from the Audubon Society.  Simply adding a water source is enough to double the amount of birds you attract.  Of course, one of our students pointed out that two times zero is still zero... but the combo of food and water will certainly increase the number of birds we will attract!

One way that parents could support this project would be to send in binoculars (if you have them) with your student.  This isn't a permanent donation to CDS but rather just a tool the students can use over the next couple of months and then they will come back home.  If we had eight pairs of binoculars we would have enough for the entire class to have a pair when we go to collect data.  If you can great, if not I am working on getting a few extra class sets to supplement the couple I already have.

Thanks again for your continued support from home!