jmarcello1's Journal

Schmitz Park Elementary
West Seattle, WA

Weather: Slight cloud cover.
Soil conditions: dry.

I sometimes volunteer for the Seattle Audubon Society, and this journal entry will account for my experience teaching natural history to young children. Upon arriving at Schmitz Park Elementary and speaking with program manager Janelle Shafer, I learned that the Seattle Audubon offers the FUN (Finding Urban Nature) program to schools which currently have no environmental education incorporated into their curriculum. It was baffling to think that a school in Seattle, of all places, did not offer any environmental education to students and I made it my duty to foster their learning about the natural world around them. The organization is run mostly through volunteers, with a few salaried employees, and strives to bring children closer to the nature in urban environments – i.e. one’s own schoolyard.

I was instructed to lead three groups of 3rd graders in lessons pertaining to environmental education, and the first topic was “Bird’s Nests.” The kids learned many interesting facts about the different types of nests that birds can make and were instructed to find materials in their schoolyard habitat to make their own bird’s nest. This actually was much harder than it sounds as it was very important to find the right materials to construct the nest, and then putting it together was a challenge as well. Some of the children were easily discouraged and I explained to them that we were only acting as birds, and so this is why we weren’t able to make a nest as well as a bird can. It was clear the more patient a child was in engaging with the activity, the better the nest turned out. I wondered if this was because children are so used to sources of instant gratification in current times, or if this was truly a skill-based lesson. The children used various materials foraged in their schoolyard habitat including: needles from the Douglas fir trees, grass, flower petals from dandelions, and various flexible branches.

My first group of third-graders consisted of five children. Among them was a very energetic, rambunctious youth – Brian – and he kept singing the lyrics to some popular, rather provocative songs. It was quite entertaining. Even more so because I had his twin brother – Tyler – in my next group and he was the exact opposite. Like night and day, literally. Tyler did seem to have more success with his bird’s nest, as he was calm enough to complete the task at hand. Interesting to think about twins and how different their personalities can be, makes for curious analysis.

I also had an autistic boy in this group named Logan. He didn’t seem to grasp, or much less express interest, in the lesson. He just wanted to talk to me and ask me random questions, which I found amusing. His paraprofessional, a Hispanic woman, was present with him and she made sure he remained somewhat on task. I asked her about how the other children responded to having an autistic child – someone who is clearly much different than them – as a part of their class. She stated that initially it wasn’t accepted as much amongst the children, but as they got used to it – the faculty was able to observe the definite improvement in relations between all the students. In my observation, there was one girl in particular – Michelle – who remained close to Logan throughout most of the lesson and helped him out a lot when needed. In returning back to the class, I also saw her desk was positioned right next to his and as this was right before recess, she helped him prepare to go outside. It was actually quite touching how close they seemed. I thought this was an interesting way to integrate diversity into classrooms and promote kindness and understanding in young children.

My last group ended up with the best bird’s nests of the day. I don’t know if it was because they were in a smaller group and I was able to float between the kids easier, or if this group was genuinely more interested in the natural world – maybe a combination of both. Isabel did seem to know a lot of random facts about plant cycles, and I felt bad because she got her jacket dirty and seemed really scared to tell or show her mom. Lastly, it could be that I had conducted this lesson three times by this point, which could have contributed to the streamlined efficiency of it all.

UW Campus
Seattle, WA

Weather: Cloud cover, light raining off and on.

Today was the first day of tours and we learned about the trees and moss found on campus. The first group was the trees and we observed quite a few species, to include: horse chestnut, Pacific Madrone, Douglas fir, Deodar cedar, Big Cone Pine, Gingko Biloba, English elm, and Monterey pine. Some interesting facts: horse chestnut produces small, white flowers with red spots and the seeds are called conkers – this tree is native to Europe. The Pacific madrone was actually cold to the touch, which was rather cool, and fruits edible berries, the leaves have medicinal uses, and this tree needs forest fires to maintain health. The Douglas fir is actually a member of the pine family and likes rocky soil and is fire tolerant. The Deodar cedar is native to the western Himalayan region and the fist-sized cones are produced only by female or bisexual trees; they are very durable trees and can live for several hundred years in poor soil conditions – they are also symbols of divinity in Asia. Gingko Biloba is native to China and is the oldest unchanged tree on earth in terms of genetics, ginseng from the tree is commonly used as an aphrodisiac in eastern medicine. Big cone pine produces the biggest cones of all pine species (hence the name) and the needles are long, thick, and in 3-needle clusters; they also produce a natural herbicide: terpene. The English elm reproduces through translucent sucker saplings, and the wood from this tree is a commonly used material for coffins. This tour was interesting, and during the observation of the horse chestnut, we were able to get a tree rubbing from the bark. Furthermore, I had always seen those little metal tags on some trees and I wondered what they were for – I found that one can identify the tree species by recording the number on the metal tag at www.assetmapper.com. I will definitely be exploring more of the trees on Seattle campus, there are so many!

The second group was the mosses and lichens. We learned that there are over 700 species in the PNW as they prefer wet, shady climates with slightly acidic soils. They rely on wind and water for dispersal and they can primarily live in any ecosystem, except marine habitats. They can go dormant for long periods of time and they lack a traditional root system. There were three groups examined: liverworts (which open into segments), mosses, and lichens (harder to the touch with no spores). We first went to the Burke-Gilman trail behind the greenhouse and looked at the different mosses on the bridge. We observed red roof moss and learned they were most common after fires. They were several kinds of mosses in this area and we didn’t have time to identify them all. Next we moved to the area near the bee house to learn about where mosses evolved from. This was very interesting! Bryophytes evolved from green algae and used to be submerged in water and as a result, they do not have a system for storing and distributing water. The haploid life cycle is the most common among algae where moss is furnished with one set of chromosomes. They are spore producing, which distinguishes them from other plants, and the stems/branches serve as sex organs. Fertilization can only occur with the presence of water, as sperm can swim – although they lack vascular systems and acquire nutrients from absorbing air and water from their surrounding environment.

The lichen skit was my favorite part of the tours all day, and was very amusing to watch. I learned that lichens respond very strongly to air pollution, and hence do not do well in urban areas where air pollution is prevalent. Because of this, they are strong indicators of air quality and the more stress they incur; the less they produce reproductive parts. Fungi and algae have a symbiotic relationship. Historically three broad categories of lichen have been acknowledged: crustose (crusty), foliose (leafy), and fruticose (shrubby) – and general rule of thumb: the less complex they are, the more tolerant to pollution they will be. They are the first indicators of change related to pollution and can be used in historical imagery analysis. Some are nitrogen fixers and respond negatively to sulphur dioxide – acid rain, heavy metal, smog, and radiation. Lichenization is the term used for symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae – where fungi provides the home for algae, and lichens live inside the fungi. In this we see that algae couldn’t exist without lichens.

Grieg Garden – UW Campus
Seattle, WA

Weather: cloud over, slight rain.
Soil conditions: slightly wet.

I met with some group mates on campus today to flesh out details of our tour, and also to observe some very amusing squirrel behavior. As it was raining and slightly late in the afternoon, we weren’t sure if we would observe any squirrels – but we did! I happened to have some trail mix and was able to coax a group of squirrels out, as long as we kept supplying the food. They especially enjoyed the dry bananas and we even observed one squirrel scatter hoarding! So cool! We didn’t see our squirrel friend, Jopa, this time around as the squirrels we encountered were much more skittish than he. They did appear to have some friendly (or maybe not so friendly) competition going on, and we were able to get some good pictures and video for our tour. None of the squirrels came too close to us, and it could have been due to the rain or simply because they were more cautious as it was a quiet Sunday afternoon and not many people around.

May 31, 2012
Grieg Garden – UW Campus
Seattle, WA

Weather: cloud cover, although no rain during our tour.
Soil: appeared to be dry.

Today is the day of our squirrel tour! Upon waking up, I looked outside to find cloud cover and was not instantly hesitant that squirrels might not come out today. My part of the tour included squirrel feeding and observation, and well, to fulfill this task squirrels definitely need to be present! Since I had doubts about meaningful squirrel observations, I went to Grieg Garden before class to hopefully coax the squirrels out with my combination trail mix and sunflower seeds. For about 20 minutes prior to class, I went to the garden and started looking for squirrels and throwing about some food treat to enchant them out. It worked and within about 10 minutes (thankfully), I had a group of four squirrels coming for food. One squirrel in particular came so close I could touch it – although I never would – and they all kept coming back sporadically for more. They were very energetic and playful, chasing each other about and calling out rather loudly (almost a barking sound). Luckily, I was able to keep them out long enough for all groups to observe and feed the squirrels – SUCCESS! The main points I wanted people to take away from my portion of the tour pertained to: competition and interaction between the eastern and western gray squirrel populations, background information about our native western grays and where the remaining groups are located, getting an indication of a squirrel’s age by their tails and fur, the life span of captive vs. wild squirrels, and some information about squirrels nests. Aaron Johnston was generous enough to provide us with his robotic squirrels so I was able to explain that he has teamed up with Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife to construct a recovery plan for the western gray squirrels, in territory increasingly occupied by eastern grays. I also explained how to tell the difference between eastern and western grays, and these differences are easy to spot – eastern grays are smaller and have a rust-brown infusion in their coats, whereas western grays are much bigger and have fully gray fur. Josh asked me questions regarding whether these species have territorial disputes, and from my understanding of Aaron’s research, they do not so much fight as partition off territory, and don’t seem to enter in another’s area – this leads to competition for space, but also for resources. And we all know squirrels (like other rodents) get their strength in numbers, so to maintain healthy populations – there needs to be a lot of them! Furthermore, western grays prefer dense, wooded forests (which we are clearly losing everyday) and eastern grays prefer riparian areas. I also discussed that eastern grays are tree squirrels and build nests in trees to rear young, as well as live in – I told my “students” not to automatically assume that a nest on campus is from a bird, because it might very well be a squirrel’s nest. And lastly, I found it amazing that in the wild most squirrels don’t live to be even a year old due to harsh conditions (although they can live up to 8), but in captivity squirrels can live anywhere from 10-20 years. I very much enjoyed getting people excited about our awesome UW resident squirrels and it is very easy to. I oftentimes find myself in Grieg Garden with absolutely no sense of time, and end up spending a lot of it just watching these interesting animals.