Dear families,
Our first trip to High Park with our guides from TUSC was great!
The most memorable moment of the day MAY have happened almost right away when, during a circle activity, a hawk flew right by us with it's breakfast. We got an up close view of the circle of life.
In the morning, we observed two environments: a Black Oak Savanna, and a maintained picnic area. We shared our observations and reflected on which environment is more diverse. We talked about how environments can change when affected by humans or other factors.
We learned about 3 categories of living things (producers, consumers and decomposers) and what living things need in order to survive. We also played a super fun invasive species game. Over the three rounds, we saw how an invasive species (such as Garlic Mustard) can really take over an environment, making it difficult for other native species to survive. Please ask about how this game worked!
In the afternoon, we hiked down to Grenadier pond, coming across two invasive species on the way - ask your scientist if they remember the invasive plant species shown in the next two photos:
At the pond, we did a fantastic investigation looking for living things in the muddy water bank. In groups, students picked through big scoops of mud looking for anything moving. They placed any living things in their water bucket and tried to identify it using a guide. One group actually caught a little fish!!
In the end, we determined that Grenadier Pond currently supports a high level of biodiversity, since we identified species that can survive in a range of water qualities.
We had a fairly long walk back to the streetcar, but nobody complained and I think everyone enjoyed the day. Thanks so much to all the parents who came and made this first trip so easy for me!
