Getting dirty with good soil

Our 2nd graders were able to meet worm friends from the Metro Composting with Worms program today. This is a free program for all schools in the Portland Metro region.  The students were able to connect the steps of the compost cycle and were experts on how to create a healthy habitat for the worms!

The salmon are coming! the salmon are coming!

Have you heard about Salmon in the Classroom? Woodlawn is lucky to be able to participate in this program with the US Fish and Wildlife Service  While it's mainly geared toward 4th graders, all Woodlawn kids have the opportunity to watch the salmon hatch and grow.

To learn more check out this video documenting last year's program.

Woodlawn students travel to the moon!

OMSI's Portable Planetarium has arrived!  The students are learning about the night sky, phases of the moon, planets, constellations the history/future of flight, and the race to go back to the moon.

First woman to command the International Space Station also becomes oldest women in space. Congrats NASA Astronaut Peggy Whitson! #NoCeilings

http://www.nbcnews.com/slideshow/u-s-astronaut-set-become-oldest-woman-space-n684301

Supermoon!

It is strange to think that the moon is not always the same distance away from us.  We see our world as a place of symmetry - circles, squares, ying/yang.  However the natural world sometimes throws in ovals and ellipses.  The term 'supermoon' was created in 1979 by Richard Nolle and is defined as a new or full moon phase that is within 90% of it's closest approach to the Earth (perigee). Today was a special 'supermoon', the closest to the Earth that the moon has been since 1948.

Last September, we were able to observe a supermoon that coincided with a total lunar eclipse.  This caused the effect known

as the "Blood Moon" here in Portland.  During this supermoon, the Earth's shadow was aligned with the moon for a short period of time.  The Earth's shadow allowed only the longest wavelengths of light from the sun, reds and oranges, to bend through our atmosphere and reach the moon's surface.

Apple Tasting

Did you know that certain types of apples are best for cooking, best for storing, best for eating raw?  

Thank you New Seasons and all of our volunteers, we were able to host the first annual Apple Tasting event at Woodlawn!  Our Kinder/3rd grade classes were able to connect their studies of Tree (kindergarten) and Growing Things (3rd grade) to our apple tasting event.  The students were able to taste five different apples, sample a cooked apple dish by the OSU Nutrition Educator, and read apple and tree books with their buddies.

Composting with Worms

As part of Metro Elementary Outreach team, it has been so much fun to learn and teach about ways to use 'nature's recycling' to reduce food waste.  We recently used a Proscope to video tape and photograph life from a worm's point of view.  With this technology, we can watch the worms digesting the food scraps and observe other microscopic organisms in the worm bin.

Garden Math

Today was our first school garden to cafeteria experience - we were able to harvest radishes and baby kale that Mrs. Willis' class planted last month!  But we had a problem to solve, how can we equally share our harvest with all of the students?  We would need to use math to find the answer!


The students enjoyed the new tastes and textures - using their sense of taste, touch, smell, and sight!

Back to School with STEAM!

Last night was the Woodlawn Back to School evening and we had a great time at the STEAM table.  The students were able to practice their engineering skills with solar panel challenges, count rings on wood cookies and sunflowers, and predicting if packages would be lighter or heavier on Mars compared to Earth.  We were also able to run a fun relay race station so the students use up some of their energy and learn about ways we can recycle at our school!

Thanks you to my helpers at the STEAM table last night - it was wonderful to see the students teaching each other and coming up with new ways to solve a problem! 

Math and art

What better way to experiment and play with difficult math concepts than with knitting.  This tactile project demonstrates Borromean Rings:

"Borromean rings consist of three topological circles which are linked and form a Brunnian link (i.e., removing any ring results in two unlinked rings). In other words, no two of the three rings are linked with each other as a Hopf link, but nonetheless all three are linked." [1]

The Borromean ring pattern was created by mathematician Sarah-Marie Belcastro and Madison Stuart

The second example is based on the Scientific American article "Knotting Needles Makes Knitted Knots".  The pattern, designed by Sarah-Marie Belcastro, creates a Torus or Trefoil Knot, similar to a möbuis but with more twists. I cast on 100 stitches on circular needles, tied a loose square knot, and then started knitting in the round. 

Recycling Art

We need your small plastic bottle caps! As part of our STEAM programing at Woodlawn this year, our students will be focusing on becoming Wildcat Warriors for our planet - reducing, reusing, and recycling. We've been recycling the landslide of water bottles, but what about the caps? Let's make art!

To make a super cool installation, though, we need lots more plastic caps. Caps off your milk jugs and peanut butter jars. Caps from juice bottles and soy sauce. . . all of them! We have one collection site located near the front office at Woodlawn in NE Portland and Rieke Elementary will be collecting for us in SW Portland

Below is just one of a hundred examples of bottle cap murals that can be found online, just to so you can get a general idea of awesomeness to come! (The sample artwork is from this site: http://www.methowarts.org/methow-valley-sunset-bottle-cap-…/)

Woodlawn's new team is going GREEN!

On Friday May 27, the Portland Public School district covered all of the drinking fountains until they could be tested for lead.  Pallets and pallets of bottled water was delivered to each school, hundreds and thousands of plastic bottles.  Over the next two days, concerned staff and parents at Woodlawn came up with a plan to start a recycling program throughout the school to collect, bag, and return the bottles.  Our new green team created an account with the Delta Park BottleDrop Redemption Center, removed the caps for future art projects, and dropped off bag after bag of bottles.  Thank you so much for setting a great example for our students and community!

Mission Possible

Your mission, if you chose to accept it, create a device that can point to the sun.  You will have:

• 4 solar modules
• 1 AC motor
• craft sticks
• glue gun
• work lamp

The Rieke 5th graders were given a challenge to create a solar tracker as a conclusion to our engineering design unit.  Each team had to figure out the correct way to connect the 8 leads from the four solar panels to the motor so that when the left side of the solar 'home' faced the light the motor would turn to the left, when the right side faced the light the motor would spin right, and when the unit was directly facing the light, the motor would stop.  As one student remarked 'my group kept on trying and trying but after the 1,000th time we finally got it.'  The students learned that there is knowledge earned in trying and failing as long as they keep trying.  By the end of the session, each team completed their mission!

Mammalian Engineering in Action

The Rieke Kinders had a special guest visitor from Tryon Creek State Park who taught them about an amazing mammalian engineer - beavers!  The students were able to share what they knew about beaver like strong teeth, webbed feet, paddle tail and took a close look at these features on the visiting mounted animal.  In the lesson we were able to connect these adaptations to how beavers can change a habitat and help many animals in the wild such as creating ponds and clearing trees to allow for new growth.  The students were then asked to take the beaver engineering challenge - how would you design a mini dam with sticks and mud?  What followed was muddy teamwork, fun, and a new appreciation for our local mammalian engineer!

STEAM Night

Last week Woodlawn celebrated it's first year as a STEAM-focused school.  Around 300 students, families, and community members attended the evening STEAM event which included tinkering stations by the Studio-2-Schools program, music performances by the Right Brain Initiative, and robotics demonstration by two First Tech Challenge teams, including the world champion team Hot Wired.  In addition, each grade offered the families an engineering challenge to complete that evening including 'What is the best design for a straw rocket?', 'Can you create a circuit to power a music box?', 'What is the best way to design a truss bridge?' 

I want to send out a thank you to all who helped make our first STEAM Night a success - Woodlawn staff, Blueprint Foundation, Children's Museum, Viking Mars Missions Education and Preservation Project, Studio-2-Schools program, Batteries in Black Robotics Team, US Fish and Wildlife Services, Hot Wired Robotics Team, Right Brain Initiative, First Lego League, and EG Robotics. And a final BIG thank you to the wonderful Woodlawn community, your support and enthusiasm is amazing!

First year as a STEAM-focused school

Over the 2015-16 school year, students and staff at Woodlawn were able to connect and add creativity, collaboration, hands-on experiences, and problem solving to our science units.  In May, we celebrated our STEAM work by looking back at our students' experiences and planned ahead for the next year!

What planet would you create?

Our 2nd graders were asked the question - if you were able to discover a new planet, what would it be like?  They learned about planets in our solar system as well as other exoplanets, and started drawing what their planet would look like from space.  Each week they were able to connect their science studies with the project - weather, landforms, habitat, food chains.  They were also able to draw from their own experience and dreams as they wrote about what type of house they would built for their families and what food they would like to eat on their planet.  All of their ideas where eventually put together in a 'travel brochure' for their planet.

As an extension to the project was a planet art activity so they could touch, design, and see their special planet.  Using paper mache over Starbucks plastic lids, each student had their own  half dome to decorate.

Here's a sneak peak at the plans for the Woodlawn STEAM Night - Thursday, May 12th from 5:45-8pm.

Waves, waves, everywhere - part II

The first grade finished their light wave exploration with an activity demonstrating the different types of light coming from the Sun.  The lesson started with a discussion about why we see rainbows and moves into ways that we can break ‘white’ light into the different colors.  The students were able to view sunlight, compact fluorescent light (CFL), and ‘black’ light in a homemade spectrometer and saw the different colors in the rainbow in these light source.

We also discussed light waves that we as humans can not see but that other animals can - snakes can sense infrared waves and bugs can see ultraviolet waves.  To demonstrate these ‘invisible’ waves, we used UV reactive beads.  I pulled out a clear container with white beads that said ‘RED’ on it.  The students are asked, ‘what color are these beads?’.  Most students said ‘red’ because of the label but eventually trusted their own observation that the beads were white.  Each student was able to create a keychain with the beads before we started our science experiment - what would happen if we took these beads outside?’  We listed our hypothesis and then walked to the playground for the big reveal.  They were so excited! When we came back in, one of the students stated “it’s not magic, it’s science!”

STEAM Noche/Night is two weeks away!

The Magic School Bus is Real!

Lockheed Martin has created an amazing bus that can transport a class to the surface of Mars.  Hopefully it will visit Portland soon!

Generation Beyond

What is STEAM?

When we started brainstorming the Woodlawn STEAM plan last year, we used the 'three dimensions' of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) as a guide.  We saw STEM and the current educational method as covering the 'Practices' and 'Core Ideas' of the NGSS.  What was missing was the 'Crosscutting Concepts'.  Overall, it is the blending of science with the 'TEM' of STEM as well as allowing more right brain activity (arts).  The Crosscutting Concepts include: 

• Patterns
• Similarity and diversity
• Cause and effect
• Scale, proportion, and quantity
• Systems and system models
• Energy and matter
• Structure and function
• Stability and change

These concepts are related to the arts.  Our concept of STEAM involves adding design, innovation, creativity, hands-on experiences, problem solving, and collaboration to our science units.  As we become more comfortable with these cross-cutting concepts we can better connect art, dance, gym classes with the curriculum in the classroom, using the same vocabulary to reinforce the 'Core Ideas' but allowing the students to practice their design thinking skills in a more kinesthetic way. 

Amazing Travel Posters from NASA

Imagine choosing a planet to visit, picking the best time of the year to explore.  NASA's Jet Propulsion Labs have release retro-style travel posters to peak your interested in intrasellar vacations.

NASA Travel Posters

What did you learn about salmon?

We asked our 4th graders what they learned through the US Fish and Wildlife Service's Salmon in the Classroom project.

Waves, waves, everywhere!

Our 1st grade students have been learning about sound and light waves through stories, observation, and experiments.  During one lesson, the students stopped to think about the source of our planet’s light, the Sun.  Using the ‘Bubble of Darkness’, designed by Patricia Cooke, the students crawled into space.  The Bubble is two 12’x12’ tarps taped together with one corner open for a large fan and another corner open as an entrance.  Once inside, the students can lay on their back and watch the ‘stars’, small holes that were poked into the top tarp.  The students are asked to observe and call out any patterns they see.

The lesson was a perfect link between science and social studies as the students had just learned about the Drinking Gourd constellation that was used by the Underground Railroad to find the North Star.

Woodlawn Google Expedition!

Learning Landscapes - Kinder Tree Planting

Today our Kindergarten classes teamed with the Portland Parks and Recreation Urban Forestry program to plant two Tuscarora crape myrtles. The students loved digging with mini shovels, playing with worms, and working as a team to move the trees to their new home.  This was a finale to this year’s Tree unit and the students were able practice the science terminology and steps to plant a tree from their studies. This experience helps the children develop a sense of ownership of their school and in community.  What fun it will be for today's little ones to watch these trees grow through their years at Woodlawn!

Tree Bark - News From Urban Forestry

Celebrating Mae Jemison!

'Grimm' set and STEAM

Our 8th graders were able to interview the 'Grimm' set designer in Woodlawn Park. Their goal was to identify STEAM activities on the set:

• Science - chemistry in the paints and vinyl protectors for the "tagged" playground
• Technology - cameras, lighting sets
• Engineering - design and construction of the new walls under the bridge
• Art - creation of the graffiti with colors that show up well on film
• Math - managing budgets and coordinating the parking of huge trucks in a small neighborhood
  
  

The Anatomy of a River

As part of Woodlawn's Salmon in the School project, the 4th graders were able to learn about the health and anatomy of a salmon stream.  We discussed the big picture of watershed health with the Watershed Table from the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership.  The students were able to identify both point pollution sources (factory, water treatment plant) as well as non-point sources (erosion, car oil, fertilizers, pesticides, and animal waste).  We discussed the pros and cons and ways that the pollution could be prevented from entering the watershed.

Without pollution

With pollution

The students were then able to focus on the anatomy of a healthy stream for the salmon.  This activity was linked to their studies of the salmon life cycle as we connected the best areas of a stream for the eggs, fry, and adult salmon.  Using glue, yarn, play dough, leaves, sticks, sand, and cat litter, the students created the steam path, rock berms to slow the water flow for the salmon fry, gravel patches for the eggs and alevins to hide, and healthy vegetation to prevent erosion along the stream.

A healthy stream with eggs, an alevin, and fry

NASA astronaut plays space water ping pong with paddle designed by a PSU student




Karl Cardin, a Portland State University mechanical engineering student, was able to watch his invention of hydrophobic ping pong paddles tested this past week aboard the International Space Station.

A New Planet in Our Solar System?  NASA Takes a Look




Always keep dreaming, questioning, and debating!  

When in doubt, make sure to use Carl Sagan's rules for Critical Thinking!

Astronomers say a Neptune-sized planet lurks beyond Pluto

"The solar system appears to have a new ninth planet. Today, two scientists announced evidence that a body nearly the size of Neptune—but as yet unseen—orbits the sun every 15,000 years. During the solar system’s infancy 4.5 billion years ago, they say, the giant planet was knocked out of the planet-forming region near the sun. Slowed down by gas, the planet settled into a distant elliptical orbit, where it still lurks today."

Read the article by Eric Hand

The Heartbeat of an Alevin

A team of 3rd graders and I were able to capture a close up of one of our salmon alevins with the Proscope and iPad!

Student Salmon Videos

Today one of our little alevins was close enough to the tank wall for our students to take some 50x videos of it's head and heart.  Check it out!

The Eggs are Hatching!

Our first egg hatched late on Monday night!  Here are some videos from our salmon cam.  The new alevin looks like a reddish blob with a wiggly tail.  They will slowly absorb their egg sac (the red spot) over the next month and a half and become salmon fry.

Science and Dance

How can you connect science concepts with art?  Through kinesthetic learning!  Thanks to the choreography skills of Rieke's dance teacher Jocelyn Edelstein, we are able to create movement related to the 5th grade's earthquake curriculum.  The students are learning an earthquake dance to Mr. Parr's 'It's an Earthquake' song!

Are you ready to SHAKE?

Here is a fun sneak-peek into what may happen next week in the Woodlawn salmon tank!

Woodlawn Salmon in the Classroom Slideshow

From day one to the March release, we will be posting photos of the Woodlawn salmon adventures here - https://flic.kr/s/aHsksFioCu

Woodlawn Students and the Salmon

Over the last week and a half the salmon eggs have become part of the Woodlawn family.  Students have been helping test the water for temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, and ammonia to make sure the tank is safe for our fish.  We have even had students reading to the eggs showing that it is good to be in a school!

Salmon Eggs and Technology

One of our salmon eggs landed close to the tank wall so we were able to use our Proscope to peak at the developing fish.  The Proscope is a 50x hand held microscope that links to our iPad for live viewing.  The students were able to view the spine of the fish as well as watch it's heart beat!  In the video, watch for the beats in the southwest corner of the pink egg.