Earth week Initiatives

Just a reminder that Monday, April 25th is a P.D day. Students also have Independent Novel Studies due on the Tuesday unless they have spoken to me about a later date.

If you are looking for a way to participate in earth day activities, "Make Orangeville Shine" will be happening this Saturday (23rd) from 9am - 12pm at Rotary Park. The Rotary Club and Tim Hortons have partnered together to support this town wide clean up.

Before having gym outside this week, students collected 5 pieces of garbage. In fact, three specific students - Maddie, Veronica, and Kiley, decided to clean up our school yard during our entire gym period. Way to go girls!

For math this week, students were asked to show me three different planters that had a volume of 200cm3, I also asked them to determine which planter would be best for my garden, and why. This was challenging for some groups as they struggled to solve factors of a large number. We worked on breaking down a large number, when we can, into a smaller number (200 - 20) and finding the factors of the smaller number. Then breaking that down into an equation that makes sense for volume (LXWXH). Pictures are included below. There will be a question like this on the test next week, I will provide very similar practice questions on the blog. After math, students planted their own green beans in decomposable containers and during art, painted personal pots for their beans. Students also planted beans for their reading buddies, which will be given to them once they begin to sprout.

Yesterday students calculated their ecological footprints. This is an assessment that tells you how many earths we would need if everyone were to live the same as you do. Our class’s lowest score was 0.13, meaning we would only need roughly 10% of the earth we already have if everyone were to live as this student lives. Our highest score was 8.5, meaning we would need roughly 8 worlds if everyone were to live as this student did. We did some data management work with these findings. Our class average, or mean, was 2.1 earths. Our median was 1.75… and our mode, the most common score, was 1.3, 1.5, and 1.9 earths. Our class is reflecting on how we choose to live our lives in relation to the environment.

Next week, I will share our "Nature is Speaking" pieces, I am very proud of student's work and interest in the environment this week. This is a topic I look forward to continuing to embed in future learning.

Tread lightly on this earth!