Project Description

After everything we've covered, from Giant Sloths to rocks and minerals, we are going to finish this year revisting ecology. This Field Journal Project will engage you in noticing nature here in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem where you live. You will be sharing your observations with some of your classmates by reading and responding to some of their observations. In making these observations, you will connect our classroom lessons to the world around you.
Your first assignment is to select a nature study area to observe twice a week. The size of the area should be about half the size of a soccer field or football field. If you select an area that has a mixture of different kinds of food, shelter, nest sites, and water sources, it will have the habitat components many different animals require. You will be more likely to get to see a variety of animals. The more things there are to observe, the more interesting your project may turn out to be for you and for others who read your observations.
In weeks to come, you will be making and recording observations of living plants and animals as well as the non-living environment in which they are found. In other words, you will be studying a small ecosystem. You decide on the location and boundaries of your study area. There may be some natural boundaries such as the edge of the woods or a briar patch. There may be a path, trail, or a fence to use as a boundary. You may simply establish the edges of your area in your own fashion. Eventually, you will make a Google map of the study area you select.
At the bottom of this blog you will find a calendar that shows when you will have access to laptop computers in our classroom. You can also see due dates for various parts of this project. There will be assignments due periodically over the next four weeks. You can complete blog entries in class but you can also complete your work from any computer with Internet access. You will receive credit for completing assignments as they are due. If you are absent when we use the classroom computers, you must find other computers to complete your assignment outside class time. There will not be a final date when the entire project will be turned in. This project will be done in pieces over four weeks during May. Each assignment will be scored individually and entered into PowerSchool.