Campus Voices
Lower School
In the lower school science program at BB&N, students learn primarily through hands-on experiments and observations. Students often ask, of all our activities, which is my favorite. This is a difficult question as I have many favorites. Along with hatching chicks, making (and then eating!) ice cream, and observing butterflies emerge from their paper thin chrysalises, I really enjoy sharing my love of trees with second graders each year.
Our tree adventure begins in early October when each second grade class walks to Longfellow Park. In pairs, the students select a tree they would like to study for the school year. Next, each student makes a careful sketch of his/her tree and makes some written observations about the tree. Before we return to school, each student collects one leaf from his/her tree.
Our study of trees continues in the classroom. We learn about simple and compound leaves, deciduous and evergreen leaves, and toothed and lobed leaves. Using several different tree guides and the leaves we collected at the park, we then try to identify our trees.
In early November we return to Longfellow Park. The focus of our second trip is on change and identification. Some students are delighted to see that their tree is now a brilliant red. Others are sad to find their tree is now bare of leaves. Each pair of students makes a final tree identification of using seed, silhouette, and bark texture as well as leaf shape.
Our third trip is in the winter and our focus is measurement. We measure the circumference of the trunk using our hands. We also measure the distance from the outermost branch on one side of the tree to the outermost distance on the other side of the tree. The most fun and unexpected measurement we make is of tree height. How can a second grader measure the height of a tree? What the students do is walk away from their tree while periodically stopping and looking through their legs for the top of their tree. When they can just see the top of their tree, they have “walked” the height of the tree.
Our last tree trip in the spring is bittersweet. Students are excited to see a park full of trees with soft, bright green leaves. They eagerly write about their trees and use watercolors to paint pictures of their trees. When it is time to head back to school for the last time, we are all a bit sad. I hope my students’ year-long study of trees will help foster a life-long appreciation of our natural world.
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