Grade 4: Winter Ecology and Unplanned Pregnancies

This week, our grade 4 scientists headed to Pickle Springs Natural Area to enhance our understanding of winter ecology and how organisms adapt to the weather conditions.  The students learned about the three main ways that animals survive (migration, hibernation, adaptations that allow them to tolerate the conditions).  We looked at several ways that insects, mammals, and plants all handle dealing with the winter season.

           

           

We hiked a bit, explored some of the slot canyons, talked about the 500 million year old LaMotte sandstone, and generally just warmed up our bodies.  Next we began to investigate this "weird organism" that we saw growing on the rocks and trees.  Students investigated this organism with hand lens, looked for patterns on where they found the organism, and tried to make some predictions about what it was. 

We then identified the organism as lichen, used a key to identify three types of lichen, reflected on the symbiotic relationship of fungi and algae that make up lichens, and finally searched for evidence of lichen succession. After this activity, students will likely begin to notice lichens everywhere so don't be surprised if you hear more about this awesome organism at home!

          

          

The crew posing with lichen.

After our winter ecology trip the boys started to construct the shelving unit that will house their crayfish and macroinvertebrate collections.  

Before we installed the tanks we wanted to give them all a good cleaning and in the process of moving the crayfish we realized that Smurfy (female Golden crayfish, Ornectes luteus) was carrying eggs!

Hands down the most exciting thing to happen in class this year!  The shocking part is that we isolated our species over a month ago so the fertilization most have taken place before the winter break.  When we first saw the eggs one of the boys quizzically asked, "Wait.  So they mated through the glass?!?" which was a nice segue way into doing some research on crayfish reproduction and gestational periods.  I'll update everyone once we have more to share!