ww 4/20

Wonderland Wetlands April 20 5th graders are remarkable. Is age10 a crossroads, a milestone, in development? Tom, Aaron, Laurina and I had groups of 17 ish in the four stations, and it seemed easy and effortless (except setup and cleanup). I was hesitant about wetlands. The addition of a hike seemed like the best fit for me. I've taught wetlands once or twice, and observed once. I felt like I didn't really have enough knowledge of macro invertebrates to do justice to the sorting station, especially with smart 5th graders. I ended up doing sorting and the watershed activity for all four of the groups. I'm glad I did. Being face to face, nose to nose, with students at the sorting station reminded me of many important things I've learned with teaching this year. We are facilitating discovery. We are asking questions. We are taking a personal interest. We are modeling honesty and authenticity. We are the teachers. The sorting station is all about discovery. The large group size made that challenging at times, but redirecting attention and passing around spoonfuls of cute macro invertebrates worked. I got much better at this by the third or fourth group. The watershed activity was presented in the same 30minute block as sorting. This is all about asking questions. And listening to answers. Why should or shouldn't the waste water treatment plant or the landfill be located on the hill? I relaxed significantly by the 2nd or 3rd group, and that allowed me to treat students more personally than when I was trying to get things right, in take 1. The personal connections over the sorting table were my favorite part of the day. Honesty - if you don't know, you gotta say you don't know. I don't know some of these creatures. what can we find on the key to help us ID them? It's been a great year of teaching.