Ideas for a greener summer: Tips for teachers, parents, and kids

Summer is a precious opportunity for kids and families to try new things.  Gone are the constraints of the school schedule, the school lunches, the school papers, the school uniforms.  But even though school is out, learning is still in!  Exploring nature, reducing waste, and simply contemplating our world are great activities for the summer.

Here are some specific ideas for teachers, parents, and kids.

Teachers:

• Consider requesting parents to contribute reusable plates, cups, and silverware for classroom celebrations in place of disposable ones.  

Have you considered trash-free parties?  They are easier than you think!

• Consider reducing paper usage by making full page documents fit onto a1/2 sheet, or committing to using double sided copying whenever possible. 
• Consider incorporating science lessons about Michigan wildlife or alternative energy.  
• Consider taking the students to visit our own Native Meadow.  
• Consider a field trip to the Kerrytown farmers market (the market website even has a curriculum for this).

Parents: 

• Consider tackling one aspect of your household and making it a shade greener.  Ideas might be paper recycling, eating foods closer to their natural state to reduce food packaging and artificial additives, implementing some of DTE's energy efficiency pointers. 
• Make an outing to a nature center (Matthaei Botanical Gardens, any zoo/aquarium/farm, the Howell Nature Center, to name a few). 

at the Toledo Zoo

• Consider buying school uniform clothes secondhand or trading with another family (this reduces the demand for companies to manufacture excess clothing).  
• Try to incorporate playtime away from screens (see below for ideas).

Kids:

• Take advantage of the warmer weather and play outside! Notice bugs, plants, birds, rocks.  

at North Bay Park in Ypsilanti

• Read a book with an emphasis on nature (The Magician's Nephew, The Secret Garden, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Farmer Boy are some great ones).  
• Plant an easy vegetable and eat it (peas or tomatoes are fun and easy). 
• Ask your parents for a nature outing (see above for ideas).  
• Turn off the screen and take a bike ride, a swim, or a walk to the park.

The Green Team would love to hear about the ways you are interacting with nature or reducing your waste this summer.  Feel free to tell us about it!

The third grade visits the Leslie Science Center!!!!!!!

(All text and photos for this post are contributed by 3rd grader Abigail Middaugh.)

Our Field Trip

            My grade took a field trip to the Leslie Science and Nature Center. We first rode on a yellow school bus for about 20 minutes until we arrived. Then we all filed into a large room. There, we got to meet a barred owl!

some type of owl

We talked about what character traits the owl had and what they were meant for. After that, we split up into different groups with our own specific tour guides. My group’s tour guide was named Michelle. We then discussed what adaptation meant and what different adaptations different birds have. As we toured some birdcages, we noticed what adaptations they had and for what purposes they were.

peregrine falcon

I think my favorite bird that I saw was the turkey vulture. I had never seen it before!

turkey vultures!

We soon gathered in a rocky clearing to examine some bird body parts. First, we looked at a turkey wing, which was stiff as a newspaper hot of the press! The other things we explored included a duck scull and a pelican beak bone (Those bones were surprisingly hollow! Michelle told us that birds that can fly have hollow bones whereas birds that can’t fly have solid bones, such as penguins or ostriches.).

We also identified some very (and when I mean very, I mean that they were the largest eggs in the world, literally!)large eggs as ostrich's eggs. One was black — as black as a cat on a halloween night!

We then went to another (bigger) clearing to play a game. Before we started, though, we discussed how birds migrate and if it is hard for them or not(which it is). Then we played a migration game. Here is how it went: There were about 20 stations (pieces of paper lying on the ground) that each said something different on them. You would role a die, then move that many stations. When you stopped at the right station, you would do what the card said. By the end, you either "made it" or "didn't make it". That was probably one of my favorite parts about the field trip.

Next, we went into the large room that we started in. There were stations too! At each of them, there was a bowl of something and 3 utensils, resembling bird beaks, to pick the thing(s) in the bowl up. The object of the activity was to find out which utensil beak picked the thing(s) in the bowl up best.

By the time we walked outside, we were almost done with the field trip! We were going to walk on a nature trail next. Before we started, Michelle told us to be very quiet so we could listen to all the different bird calls. She also told us that there are millions of different kinds! In other words, as many bird calls in the world as there are pennies in a million dollars! By that time, it was so hot outside, I felt like I was in the middle of a burning house!

And I bet you can't guess what happened next. As if I had called it down from the sky, it started to rain! What a relief! Before long, I felt much better. Also at that time, we had to get back on the bus to go back to school.

I would have much to tell when I got home!