Big news - Woodlawn has been awarded the National Wildlife Federation Eco-School USA Green Flag!

Almost 5,000 schools across the country take part in this program (336 in Oregon alone) and 94 have earned Green Flag active status. This award is from the sustainability work that the students Green Team, staff, and community completed over the last year. Woodlawn is the second Green Flag school in the state and one of only 24 schools west of the Mississippi River!

Make every word count

Simon Tam of The Slants spoke at the 24th Annual Northwest Public Employees Diversity Conference conference. He gave an amazing point about the power of words:

"If you only had a limited number of words to share with others, what would you say? If you are only going to be remembered by your final words, what would you say? Say it.
Beginning right now, make every word count.”

http://blog.marylhurst.edu/blog/2013/07/09/student-reflection-advice-in-500-words-or-less/

One Little Elephant

Follow the incredible story of one baby elephant born in Botswana. "Naledi", or 'star' in Setswana, battles for survival with the help of the amazing staff at Abu Camp, a halfway house for orphaned or former zoo and circus elephants.  This documentary also covers the battle for survival of all elephants and the conservation efforts that are in action right now.

"Naledi: A Baby Elephant's Tale"

Woodlawn was featured in the National Wildlife Federation Eco-School USA Back-to-School Snapshot!

Go Woodlawn Wildcats!

Alternative ways to safely view the eclipse - 2

As all kids know, boxes are fun!  Here is directions on how to make a solar eclipse projector with a cereal box.  You can also adapted it to a shoe box or bigger as shown in this photo from the 1960 eclipse.





For written directions, click here.

Alternative ways to safely view the eclipse - 1

If you don't have solar eclipse glasses, here are some other options. Make sure to instruct children to stand with their back to the sun - ask them to follow their shadow to be safe. A shadow buddy!





If you do have eclipse glasses but are worried that your younger child will peek around the edges during the event, mount the glasses through a paper plate.  Bonus fun, they can decorate the plate for their own personal mask!

How to tell if your eclipse glasses are safe

Here is information from the American Astronomical Society and the National Science Foundation regarding eye safety.  The brand that we handed out at the Woodlawn STEAM Night were manufactured by American Paper Optics in Memphis, TN and are ISO and CE certified. You can confirm by finding the ISO number on the inside arm of the glasses.

Here is information on why you need to protect your eyes during this event. I will be posting alternatives to the glasses soon, especially if you have young children.

Can you really go blind staring at an eclipse?  Tips for safe viewing

How to read a scientific article

In this age of fast moving trends and misunderstands, it helps to be able to look at peer reviewed data for yourself.  Here is a great guide by Jenn.ifer Raff

How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists

"From vaccinations to climate change, getting science wrong has very real consequences. But journal articles, a primary way science is communicated in academia, are a different format to newspaper articles or blogs and require a level of skill and undoubtedly a greater amount of patience. Here Jennifer Raff has prepared a helpful guide for non-scientists on how to read a scientific paper. These steps and tips will be useful to anyone interested in the presentation of scientific findings and raise important points for scientists to consider with their own writing practice."

Woodlawn Green Team

Yesterday was the last meeting of the 2016-17 Green Team. It was bitter sweet to say goodbye to such a great group of kids but I am looking forward to continuing their eco-action plans in the fall with new students. If you would like to be involved next year please let me know!

 

To see what the students achieved this year, check out our dashboard on the National Wildlife Federation's Eco-School USA site

Photos from STEAM Night


June 13

Full STEAM Ahead!

Woodlawn was featured in this month's blog post by the National Wildlife Federation for their work on the salmon project, Green Team, and GLOBE!

Another successful STEAM year!

Thank you to all of the wonderful staff and volunteers who helped make this event a success - so many happy and engaged faces! 

Only one more day until STEAM Night! 

Thursday, May 18th, 5:15 - 7:30pm

Our students and staff have completed some great work over this year.  Come celebrate their acheivements and participate in a STEAM challenges in each grade!

Only six more days until STEAM Night!

Yesterday I talked with the students during lunch about the upcoming solar eclipse. Thanks to the Robert D and Jessie L Stinnett Foundation and the Woodlawn PTA, we will be able to hand out free solar eclipse glasses at the event for safe viewing on August 21.

To learn more about solar eclipses, check out these sites:

The Great American Eclipse - Oregon based information about the event

Only 10 more days until Woodlawn STEAM Night - May 18th 5:15-7:30!

Our keynote speaker that evening will be Dr. Delia Grenville, an Industrial and Systems Engineer and Senior Research Scientist at Intel. Dr. Grenville is the inventor of six digital content technologies as well as the co-founder of Designing Me, an organization that advises professional women into leadership positions. She will be speaking to the community at 5:35pm that evening in the auditorium. Don't miss it!

Save the date for the 2nd annual Celebration of STEAM!

Happy Earth Day!

Basic bridge

Portland is known for it's many bridges and many 3rd grade classes in the region focus on these structures as an important part of our city's history.  Did you know that Leonardo da Vinci designed a self supporting bridge in 1468 after being asked to create a simple bridge to cross rivers for troops to be able to assemble on site.  Genius.

Woodlawn earned awards from Eco-School USA

Morgan Park, a representative from the National Wildlife Federation's Eco-Schools USA program, visited Woodlawn to recognize the students for their environmental work. The Green Team earned the Bronze Award for their work on waste reduction and the current 4th and 5th grade students earned the Silver Award for their work raising salmon for the last two years. Finally our student GLOBE team was recognized for their work collecting weather data for NASA and NOAA. 

Way to go Woodlawn Wildcats!  Here is a video of the assembly:

P.S. Exciting news - Woodlawn's participation in the USFWS Salmon in the Schools program is being featured on the Eco-Schools USA website! 

Food Waste, Wasted Food

Last month, the Green Team conducted a waste audit and found out that in a typical day in the cafeteria, the school created: 

    - 48 lbs of trash

    - 5 lbs of plastic waste

    - 112.5 lbs of food waste

While part of our lunch message to the students is that "the most important thing to do with food is eat it", we do have an option through the school district to collect food waste so that it doesn't go straight to the landfill. If we chose to start this program, we need some community members to help during the lunch hour for the first few weeks to help the students learn what can go into the food waste bin and what needs to go in the garbage. If you are interested in volunteering to help with this project, please contact me. Thank you!

What can you do with a simple straw?

Shout out to the Batteries in Black Robotics Team

This weekend is the First Lego League State Championship. One of our STEAM partners, Batteries in Black Robotics Team from Washington Country 4-H, live streamed the event. 

Batteries in Black goal is "to share our passion for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math with others in our community and beyond. Through our experiences, we gain exposure to valuable skills, strengthen academic and intellectual achievements, as well as develop character and identity.”

After their competitions, their team donated two new laptops to Woodlawn School to be used by our First Lego League teams. Thank you!

Salmon anatomy - form and function

Our fourth grade classes were able to investigate salmon anatomy in the STEAM room today. Thank you US Fish and Wildlife and our Roosevelt HS volunteers for supporting this activity!

What is out there? 

This may be the best place outside of our solar system to look for life.

CNN - The universe is about to get a little more crowded with planets

Citrus tasting

BIG thank you to New Seasons and all of our parent volunteers - you helped make the citrus tasting today a great success. It was a close battle between the lime and the blood orange but the lime was the Woodlawn favorite. It was a great scientific experience - the students used their sense of touch, smell, and taste!

Salmon Education

Class brainstorm on why salmon are important and what makes them unique

River anatomy and art (can you find the eggs and alevins?)

So much to learn about salmon in 4th grade! Today we discussed why salmon are important, the salmon life cycle, the anatomy of a river, and types of watershed pollution. Next week Mr. Jeffrey Johnson will meet with the classes to talk about fish adaptations!

Using the watershed table to learn about different types of pollution

Little hearts beating

Our Kinders were able to watch the alevin's heart beat with the hand held 50x microscope. Even without the microscope you can view the heart beating (look for the small red dot in the far right alevin's throat above the egg sac). Bonus question - why do fish have their heart in their throat and not the chest like us?

Answer - Our heart in in our chest because it needs to be near our lungs to properly oxygenate the blood.  In all animals, the cardiovascular (heart/blood) and the pulmonary (lungs) are closely linked.  Since lungs don't work underwater, fish use their gills to capture oxygen from the water. Therefore, we would expect to find the salmon heart close to the gills.

The Woodlawn family has grown by 1!

The first egg hatched today!

Salmon Success!

All of the Woodlawn salmon eggs survived the winter storm and are growing bigger!  If we had lost power during the storm the tank water temperature would have started rising to unsafe levels for salmon development.

First baby photos

We were able to take some photos of our salmon eggs with our 50x microscope - you can see there is room to grow in the eggs and how well developed their eyes are already!

The salmon eggs have arrived! 

Thank you US Fish and Wildlife and Jeffrey Johnson.