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5th Grade Teaching Kit

In coordination with District 742, the Saint John's Arboretum has developed traveling trunks for teachers.  The 5th grade trunks have activities centered around environments.  The trunks are available at schools in the district or by request from the Arboretum office.

Activities

Habitat Match-up:  Saint John's habitat restoration project is unique in that a 1.5 mile loop features four distinct habitats -- wetlands, prairie, forest and oak savanna.  There is less than one percent of prairie left in Minnesota and only one tenth of a  percent of oak savanna.  These habitats are home to a diverse host of plants and animals.  Re-establishing these communities has increased tremendously increased the biodiversity in this region.  In this activity students are given a map of the Saint John's habitat restoration project and fifty different plants and animals to match to the different habitats -- wetlands, prairie, forest, oak savanna.

Water Cycle Game:   One drop of water filters through many different organisms, water sources, and ecosystems.  Evaporation, transpiration, and precipitation occur at different rates in different environments.   In this game, students pretend to be water droplets and the dice determine where they will go next.  The dice are made to replicate the probable path of water droplets at each stage of the water cycle.  For instance, the chances are 4 or 6 on the ocean die that you will stay in the ocean.  2 out of 6 times you will move onto the cloud station.   The children begin to see where water spends the most time in the water cycle and how water can move through the system.   

Macro invertebrate Mayhem: Wetlands are second in diversity of life only to the rainforest.  One large group of wetland organisms that are easily located and studied are macro invertebrates.  Macro invertebrates are excellent indicator species because they react quickly to the effects of environmental stressors such as pollution or booms in the predator populations.  This game is designed to show children the interactions between such species. 

Go to the Head of the Cloud:  This game is similar to the water cycle game but it substitutes cards for dice. 

Micro Mysteries:   This activity challenges kids to look carefully at a close-up shot of common, objects found in the arboretum such as a wasps' nest, a cattail or tree bark.  The students have to guess what the object is based on the "micro" view of it.  This activity initiates a critical thinking process that strengthens observation skills.

Tree Cookies:  Every year trees get a new ring.  These rings are very useful in talking about the life of a tree.  The rings can indicate age, severity of a growing season, injury incurred by the tree from fire or disease.  Tree cookies are also good for identifying the different parts of a tree such as the heartwood, the bark, and the sapwood.

Track Stories:  Children may not always see wildlife when they come to the arboretum, however, there are many signs such as scat, fur on bushes, rubbing on trees and probably easiest to identify -- tracks.  This activity utilizes tracks to tell a story of different interactions between wildlife such as the predator/prey relationship.  The teacher can create a story for the students to interpret and/or the kids can create their own stories to share with each other.

Learning to Look, Looking to See: Recording observations, attention to detail, and communication is a vital skill for scientific work and to fully experience nature.  In this activity, half of the students will observe and record a written description of the wildlife poster presented to them.  The other half of the students will do the same for a different poster.  After completing their written descriptions the posters are removed and the two halves exchange their descriptions and try to draw what was described only from the written descriptions.

Birdsong Identification:  There are many species of birds living at St. John's ranging from waterfowl and Bald Eagles to the common Robin.  Many times we hear the birds before we can actually see them.  This activity allows children to become familiar with the calls and songs of 10 birds living in the area.    The kit includes a CD and a set of flip cards.  The children try to match up the bird pictures with the sounds on the CD. 

5th Grade Trunk Contents List



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