Our Very Own River: The Kalamazoo RiverMeta-Narrative from the Maymester ExperienceJill Fuhrman 5.29.09

Background Information

The River Project was conducted by children ages 6-7 in a 1st grade classroom within Albion, MI. the project

took place towards the end of the 2008-2009 academic years during the entire month of May. The students had

little experience with river habitats, while they knew much about other types of habitats, seeing as they had just

finished learning about ocean, forest, arctic, and desert habitats.

The theme for Maymester was “Environment, Civic Engagement, and Character Education” thus the reason

why I choose to focus on one resource that is important to everyone: Water. In order to narrow down the topic of

water, I decided to focus on a local icon for the Albion area: the Kalamazoo River. Albion is the location in where

the South Branch and the North Branch of the Kalamazoo river meets, it is often referred to as the ‘fork.’ Also I

chose to focus on river since I have a interest in geology and land formation as an Elementary Education Integrated

Science major. Overall the location of the Kalamazoo to the elementary was too close to ignore; being only a

couple blocks away from the school.

Emerging Project and Preliminary Planning

I was able to spend the initial part of the semester to planning the month long curriculum could look like.

Following the Project Approach format I began by creating a topic web of all the connections I could make to the

river. I also included the topics of Maymester into boxes to see what connections I could make with the Kalamazoo

River to the Maymester theme.

Figure 1. Concept Map of the Kalamazoo River

Phase 1Discussion Fieldwork Representation Investigation Displays

-Using a concept map to see what students know about rivers.

-Have students draw a river system and label parts of the river from a given list.-Give students a map and worksheet replica to gain vocabulary words of the cities for labeling.

-Using a piece of paper, fold it twice to have four squares, and have students tell me what they know about other places that water comes from other than their faucet.

- Before reading “Where the river begins” ask the class how they would find the beginning of a river. Have them tell me verbally.

Have students discuss what they found to be similar in their stream table pictures. The pictures should contain an image of what the water did to the land.

In conjunction to the concept mapping a matrix was made of no activities but instead thoughts of how I can capture

what the students know about rivers (figure 2).

Figure 2. Phase 1 matrix

Collect Resources for River Curriculum Unit

In the process of collecting resources for my curriculum unit it was also important that I included a list of

resources that I could use in my curriculum. The following annotated bibliography is a collection of

people, places, and books that I have been able to find and had the opportunity to use during my Rivers

curriculum.

Annotated Bibliography

1. Albion College Geology Department. Including individuals such as Thom Wilch (Geology department chair and Geomorphology professor), Larry Taylor (Albion College Geology department emeritus), and Robert Harris (technician for the Geology and Physics departments).

This department has done so much for me throughout my Albion College experience. They have provided many materials throughout the years for my after school science programs as well as online lessons. This time they were able to help me put together a field trip where I would visit and use their facilities and stream tables to let the kids experiment in what is necessary to create a river or stream.

2. Albion College Whitehouse Nature Center (WNC) in Albion, MI

What better way to experience the outdoors than with our own Nature Center. The nature center holds 140 acres of natural wetland and forestry habitat. This was one of my deciding factors in doing my rivers and wetlands unit. The Whitehouse Nature Center features the Kalamazoo River running right through it and show the location of floodplains very well. The WNC is largely populated with local species that are easy viewed during many of the seasons with a short walk around the many trails.

3. City of Albion Sewage Treatment Plant in Albion, MI

Through the direction of Kevin Markavich the Albion Sewage Treatment Plant offers tours to any interested group. The tours showcase the different stages that it takes for our water to be cleaned before it reaches the river once again. Using this resource is a simple visual reminder to students to remember not to pollute the water seeing as it will reach the river once again.

4. Clean Water Celebration (2009). Clean water celebration: free to all students, offers three types of learning experiences: exhibit booths; Retrieved April 19, 2009, from http://www.siue.edu/OSME/river/CWC/CleanWC.html

The website exhibits Schools, businesses and organizations engage students in water or environmental activities including: creatures of the wetlands, stream erosion, water treatment and filtering, weather monitoring, measuring nitrates, water conservation, and river art. Rivers Project students share the results of their studies, activities and research in their interactive booths. Visiting teachers receive educational packets prior to the Celebration including study questions. Rivers Project students become "teachers" or mentors for younger students.

5. Crupi, Tamera. Director of the Albion College Whitehouse Nature Center in Albion, MI

Tamara Crupi is the director of the WNC and is extremely knowledgeable about the local biomes and species. She is largely a biologist with expertise in several of the other sciences. She has years of experience working with kids the elementary to students of the college, putting on programs that are both environmentally informative and educational. Her insight on working with children and the environment is far beyond my experiences or those of many teachers. She has helped me develop a unit plan that incorporates local wild life, without being too advanced for my 1st graders.

6. Debnam, B. (1995). The mini page: Help for planet Earth. Kansas City, MO: Universal Press Syndicate Company.

This resource book is filled with great ideas and activities to get young students thinking about how we pollute the Earth, but more importantly how we can clean up the Earth. There were several pages from the book I wanted to use but ended up just using the section on solutions for polluting less water. I was able to create a booklet out of the images and text provided that I made into comprehensive guide to showing how the students could care for the water within their own homes.

7. Desmond, T. & photographs by Stephen Low/Picture verse productions (1995). Beavers: Based on a Imax/Omnimax motion picture, a Stephen Low Film. Toronto, ON: Scholastic Inc.

During our trip to the Whitehouse Nature Center we saw a beaver carrying a stick back to its home. The students were so amazed that they wanted to know more about how the beavers live and how they build their homes. This book was provided to the students during one of our “picture walks” so that they could see and read more about how the beavers build their homes as well as what they like to eat which is important information for the diorama boxes they are making.

8. Ducks Unlimited. (2008). Green wing wetland ecosystems and habitats; Communities and the diversity of life, Student Journal. Retrieved March 21, 2009, from http://www.greenwing.org/dueducator/ducanadapdf/99993845.PDF

This website wasn’t particularly used for any of its material that it had, seeing as it was more advanced than a 1 st grade level. However, I was able to shape a lot of what I was going to talk about around what this website showcased. It has a lot of lessons on wetland animals and plants that focus on leaning about each species individually. The specifics of many of their lessons gave me clues for what to expect the students to include in their species descriptions within their dioramas.

9. Fowler. A. (1996). Life in a pond. Toronto, Ontario: Downing Publishing Services

There are very few 1st grade books that are on the topic of wetland plants and animals, fortunately I found this one about ponds in general. It is important that I let the students know the difference between a pond and a wetland, since a pond is a still body of water with animals and plants living in it. While a wetland usually has a river flowing through it and more still waters on the sides of the rivers, yet both the ponds and wetlands contain a lot of the same animals. Therefore this book was a great chance for the students to read about wetland animals and plants before we

began working with the students’ dioramas.

10. Gerholdt, J. E. (1994). Turtles and tortoises. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Abdo Consulting Group, Inc.

The book was pulled from the library shelves to be used as a reference guide to the students during their information gathering stage of their culminating projects. This turtle book is still a little too advanced for my 1st graders, but the text is easier than many of the books I had found. While it also offers a lot of information on the turtles that the students can choose to use in their descriptions of their wetland species.

11. Locker, T. (1984). Where the river begins. Toronto, Ontario: Penguin Books Canada

This is a story that I read aloud to the students. It takes the students on a journey of looking at a river and inquiring about where it begins. The story goes through a lot of the bodies of water that were introduced in my unit plan as well as sounds like some of my students questions about where rivers come from or where they go to. The book takes the students on a hike alongside a river and shows some of the wetland/river habitats that are common in the North West area of Michigan and Canada.

12. Lorbiecki, M. (2001). Planet patrol: A kids’ action guide to Earth care. Minnetonka, MN: Two-Can Publishing.

An idea from this book was very simple but made a world of difference when it came to getting the students to understand how much effort it takes to clean water. One of the sections of the book is about wetland wonders and how important it is to protect the waters and shorelines in order to keep all the animals that live there safe. A suggestion was to take a walk outside to a pond or river and collect some water samples to study back in the classroom. I used this suggestion when we visited the river for the first time seeing as we were going to be talking about how to clean water for the next couple days.

13. Silver, D. M. & illustrated by Patricia J. Wynne. (1994). One small square: Pond. New York: Learning Triangle Press.

This book provides a great resource for the students to look at the pictures as during their picture walk. The text is a little more complicated for the students, but it allows them to look at some good pictures of the pond/ wetland habitat as well as some of the animals and plants that belong to those habitats. I decided to use this book because after the students were done using it for their picture walks I could then simplify some of the text for them to use in describing their animals.

14. Strauss, R. (2007). One well: The story of water on Earth. Toronto, ON: Kids Can Press Ltd.

I decided to start my unit plan with an introduction to how much water we use and where we get our water from. Mostly I wanted to gather what knowledge they had about their use of water and this book helped me then create an activity where I would talk about how much water an individual uses everyday. This book also was helpful once it came time for the students to be introduced to the wetland animals. Some of the students had a difficult time grasping how a crocodile can live in a wetland but not one here in Michigan. So we read and then talked about the different watery habitats introduced within this book.

15. Parker, S. (2005). Eyewitness Books: Pond and river. New York: DK Publishing.

Whenever I am working on a scientifically oriented lesson I like to see if there are any eyewitness books that I can use as a reference for the students as well as myself. These books give me a chance to get a good overview of the subject. I feel as if they take very good pictures and sometimes for 1st graders pictures will speak volumes about the subject. Again the books text is a little more advanced for my students but when they need help finding out what the their animal eats or where it lives this book will be a great resource for them even if I have to read it.

16. Prat-Serafini, K. J. (2000). Salamander rain: A lake and pond journal. Hong Kong: Dawn Publications.

What a cute book! I loved this book as soon as I opened it. It is a kids book on wetland animals and plants, it has great illustrations, side notes, activities, tons of animals, and tons of plants that are each described with great detail. Again because the pictures are just so capturing as well as accurate to the animal colors I wanted to give the students the chance to use this in their picture walk as well as if they need more information for their diorama descriptions it is just one more resource form them to use.

17. Project Learning Tree. (2007). Pre K-8: Environmental education activity guide. Washington, DC: American Forest Foundation.

The book offers activities and lessons on conserving wetlands as well as a lesson on how to observe a wetland. Within this lesson comes a page that the students can use during a trip to a wetland area. I did not use the worksheet during our trip to the Whitehouse Nature Center, but I did get some ideas from its suggestions. When we got to the nature center I had each of the students take a moment to observe and “quietly” note what they saw. We needed to be quiet in order not to disrupt the animals around us, since we are in their home now. The lesson instructed us to observe the water too (much like Planet Patrol), but this time there were more detail instructions on how to lead the class in discussion of: whether the water was dirty, if it is good for it to be dirty, and how to clean the water within the classroom.

18. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. (2000). U.S. fish & wildlife service: Wetlands, Coloring Book. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Interior.

To introduce the students to wetlands during my first week of defining bodies of water and what a river is and where if flows, I needed to begin seeing some of the plants and animals placed within a wetland habitat. The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service has a very nice collection of coloring pages with various images and wetland preservation, destruction, and habitats. I had the students color a couple of pages that showcase some labeled animals and plants of a wetland during activities that only allowed a few students at a time. The coloring pages allowed the students to at least get a chance to look at and interact with a wetland habitat before we talked about it more the next week.

19. USGS (2009). Earth’s Water: The Water Cycle. Retrieved April 16, 2009, form http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/qahome.html

Considering that the USGS stands for the United States Geological Survey and since the beginning of my unit is all about geomorphology—it is very appropriate that I cite them. The USGS has more data and links than one can image. I have used their website before to collect information on the water cycle for a previous unit plan and since the class is being introduced to water ways this is a great cite to use to gather information and activity about the different bodies of water and their movements.

20. Wallace, M.D. (2004). America's wetlands: Guide to plants and animals. Golden, Colorado :Fulcrum Publishing

The book offered the opportunity for students to understand the differences in wetland habitats from one section of America to the next. When the students did their concept mapping of what they knew lived near rivers they mentioned crocodiles. Reading the South-Eastern section of this book as well as the North-Eastern section gave the students a better understanding that a habitat can change from location to location thus the animals change from location to location.

Standards that the River Curriculum Meets

The Michigan K-7 Grade Level Content Expectations was review to see what connections the River curriculum might

be able to make to the Standards. The below Standards and Sub-standards were found to coincide with the

projected curriculum unit. They will be indicated throughout my meta-narrative by citing the substandard

identifiers.

ELA

Writing:W.GN.01.04 Use a teacher-selected topic to write one research question: locate and begin to gather information from teacher-selected resources, organize the information and use the writing process to develop a project. W.PS.01.01 Develop personal style in oral, written, and visual messages in both narrative (e.g., natural language, specific action, emotion) and informational writing (e.g. sequence, specific vocabulary, visual representation).

Social Studies

Geography: G1: The World in Spatial Terms; Use geographic representations to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial perspective. I-G1.0.4 Distinguish between landmasses and bodies of water using maps and globes.G5: Environment and Society; understand the effects of human-environment interactions.I-G5.0.1 Describe ways in which people modify (e.g., cutting down trees, building roads) and adapt to the environment (e.g., clothing, housing, transportations).

Science

Inquiry Analysis and Communication: K-7 Standard S.IA: Develop an understanding that scientific inquiry and investigations require analysis and communication of findings, using appropriate technology. S.IA.01.14 Develop strategies for information gathering (ask an expert, use a book, make observations, conduct simple investigations, and watch a video).

Reflection and Social Implications: K-7 Standard S.RS develops an understanding that claims and evidence for their scientific merit should be analyzed. Understand how scientists decide what constitutes scientific knowledge. Develop and understanding of the importance of reflections on scientific knowledge and its application to new situations to better understand the role of science in society and technology.S.RS.01. 11 Demonstrate scientific concepts through various illustrations, performances, models, exhibits, and activities.

Life ScienceHeredity: L. HE.E.1 Observable Characteristics-Plants and animals share many, but not all, characteristics of their parents.L.HE.01.11 Identify characteristics (for example: body coverings, beak shape, number of legs, body parts) that are passes on from parents to young.

Earth ScienceSolid Earth: K-7 Standard E.SE: Develop an understanding of the properties of earth materials and how those properties make materials useful. Understand gradual and rapid changes in earth materials and features of the surface of Earth. E.SE.E.1 Earth Materials- Earth materials that occur in nature include rocks, minerals, soils, water, and the gases of the atmosphere. Some Earth materials have properties which sustain plant and animal life.

Integrated Science

As a future elementary educator I feel as if it is very important to interconnect the discipline across each of

your large units. Seeing as I my major is Integrated Science I should be able to create a science unit with little

frustrations. However, it is more important the unit is scientifically correct and follows with the norms and theories

stated in today’s scientific community. Within my curriculum unit I needed to connect at least three science

concepts and two math concepts that could be found in an undergraduate level science course.

My 3 science concepts include river formation (geology 206), water movement (chemistry 123, geology

206), and wetland habitats (biology 195). While my one math connection that spans each of the 3 science concepts

is; time. Connections to the below topics where made thru activities, demonstrations, field trips, worksheets, and

discussions.

River formation- Rivers are usually located in a low spot where water can pool and the downward slope is what carries the water. The movement of the water, if it is fast enough, will pick up the sand grains and distribute them down stream. This movement of sand will then create the river formations that are typically seen across the globe.

Water movement- Water is very sticky because it is a polar molecule. Since it is so sticky it will collect into bodies of water. These bodies are located all around the world and are found in varying sizes.

Wetland habitats-Animals and plants that live near rivers, need the fresh water to survive. It is important to note that these animals and plants have adapted and survived living in this particular environment.

Time- Is very important when defining any geological process because the time could take hundreds of thousands of years or a couple years. Time is also important for thinking about how animals and plants need lots of time to be able to reproduce to find the correct species what will survive in various environments.

Phase 1: The Project Begins

Phase 1 focuses on examining the topic with the students as an introduction to the unit. Phase 1 can often

feel like the “K” within a KWL chart, as the students are letting you know as teacher, what they know. This gives

the teacher the ability to then take what they know and begin shaping the lessons to accommodate where the

students need to be by the end of the unit. I chose to sample what the students’ knew about rivers by creating a

concept map that had asked various questions on rivers. The students would then answer what they thought about

each of the following questions on their own sheets and then hand them in: What is in a river?, What lives near a

river?, What is a river made of?, and The name of the river in Albion.

I compiled all the answers from the concept maps and added them to a large KWL sheet (1m by 5m), under

the Knowledge section. I had already written each of their suggestions on a sheet so they were anonymous for

the next time we met to discuss each of the suggestions as a class. As we began going through the different

suggestions, students were saying things like “sharks don’t live in rivers, they live in oceans, don’t they?.”

Questions like this prompted the next step in my lesson, for talking about what we would like to learn over the next

3 weeks. These questions were placed in the ‘W’ section of the KWL. Questions were written down as “What is the

difference between rivers and oceans?,” “Do sea lions live in the river?,” “Where do we get our water from?,”

“Why is there trash in the river?,” “What lives in a river?,” and “Why is the river dirty?” for a few examples. These

questions would then be left as questions until the last day in the classroom when I would ask the students if we

could answer any of the questions that we had at the beginning of the 3 weeks.

I was able to use the questions to see if their questions were able to be answered during my planned

curriculum unit. All but a few of the questions could be answered using the curriculum that I had planned. Such as

my first representation piece where the students had to show at least 4 places where water is located other than

the faucet. This gave me another understanding of what they knew about water resources. Many of them put

pools, and tubs which all ultimately come from faucets and pipes. However some put oceans, waterfalls, rivers,

streams, snow, and lakes which were more natural resources of where water is located (I-G1.0.4).

To keep the students engaged and questioning about rivers, I read the story “Where the river begins?” The

students were very curious where the river began before we started the book and I just sampled what they thought

the beginning of the river was as well as where the beginning of the river was. This gave me more feedback about

what they know specifically about river formations and location. The story was read and started to inform students

about what a river is and where it is located which begins phase 2.

Phase 2: River Exploration

Phase 2Discussion Fieldwork Representation Investigation Displays

-8 wetland animal pictures and 2 wetland plant pictures. Have students tell me what they think the name of the creature within the picture is, as well as where they live and what they look like.

-Within a worksheet connected to the 8 animals and 2 plants; we will go through as a class and label the names of each of the plants and animals together.

-Through collecting their information on their 3 wetland animals and 1 wetland plant, the students will describe what they look like and a cool fact about them.

-At the River ask questions about how the students could figure out which way the river moved. - Also allow them to help in the process of determining where water samples should be collected.

- Within their dioramas, have students reference (on a note card) where some of the wetland animals live in reference to the river.

Table 2: Phase 2 from the Project Approach

I planned 3 field trips that showcased various characteristics about rivers and river habitats. The field trips

included a trip to the Whitehouse Nature Center, the Water Treatment Plant, and the Stream Tables in the Albion

College Geology Department (S.IA.01.14). Due to the fact that the field trips were scheduled to give the student

the experience and gained knowledge about the rivers, the lesson for each of them contained a lot of both open

and guided inquiry in order to supplement phase 2 representations, field work, or investigation.

Our first field trip was to the Stream Tables where the students began thinking about what is in a river and

what a river does to the land around it. Through a worksheet I created for them the students worked together to

investigate what kind of land form they wanted to start with and guess what would happen to the water before we

turned it on. Each group got enough time to discuss the possibilities and then we ran the experiment to see exactly

what happened. This let the students to inquire about how a stream or river forms and how they are different from

other bodies of water that are stagnate (I-G1.0.4). It also began their understanding that water flows and picks up

dirt, which they would spend more time learning about during the next field trip (E.SE.E.1).

During the field trip to the nature center the students had more of an experience than I thought they

would. When we arrived to our final destination, the bridge that crosses the Kalamazoo River, the students seemed

to be awe-struck by the amount of animals and plants that were at the river. Ultimately that experience alone

made phase 3 much easier, seeing as they then had background knowledge of river animals in plants. So I just let

them look, point, gasp, and talk about what the animals looked like and what they were doing. I couldn’t imagine a

better discussion for phase 2. However, I did have a lesson that need to be completed and they did a great job

indicating to me which way the biodegradable peanuts moved when they were tossed into the river.

Student looking at the minnows and ducks within the river.

The experience of seeing which way the river ran gave me an opportunity to talk to the students about

where the noodle would end up. I lectured about how it would go to the city called Kalamazoo and after traveling a

little further, it would reach Lake Michigan. I wanted them to begin making the connections to how if we put trash

in the water it would eventually reach Kalamazoo. I asked the students if they would like it is somebody in the

other direction, of the stream, would put trash in the river and then it comes to us. The students said in unison

“No.” We don’t want their trash a few students noted. I was glad to see that they were beginning to think about

more than just themselves, which is very important when discussing water conservation ( I-G5.0.1).

Throwing the magic noodles into the river.

Before we left to go back to the classroom, I had each of the students take a cup of water collected from

the stream and take it back into the classroom in order to make judgments if it was dirty or not. Back in the

classroom, I had the students observe what was in the water and make their judgments of the water quality. They

all agreed it was dirty. When I explained to them that that is the water we drink, they didn’t believe it. I told them

that we get our drinking water from underground ponds, lakes, streams, and rivers. But there is an important piece

to how we can drink the water from these places. First we have to clean the water, I explained to them, but I

wanted them to investigate how we could clean the water. I gave them a few minutes to discuss, as tables, how

they thought the water could be cleaned.

Collecting water samples back to the classroom in order to observe them.

The answers all had the same common theme- take the dirt out. I kept probing with “but, how?” and the

students would not answer. For a while they were frustrated with me because I would not give the answer, but

soon I was able to get one of the students to mention a strainer. The strainer was enough to allow me to use the

word filter. I then demonstrated to the students how a kitchen towel could act as a filter to collect all the dirt and

leave just the water. I then had them compare the new clean to the old dirty water.

The demonstration was to prepare them for their next field trip to the water treatment plant. We had

been learning about the differences between various bodies of water, and the students had a decent grasp on the

definition of a river. This gave the students the ability to better understand the impacts on our use of water and

how that affect the river and those things and people live in or downstream in the river.

Earlier in the week, before the Water Treatment Plant (WTP), the students were expected to label on a

map of the Kalamazoo River with the cities that the noodle would had traveled through. While at the Water

Treatment Plant I asked the students where the dirty water would go if we didn’t have this place (WTP) to clean our

water for us. We then listed the areas of people that would be affected by the waste reaching them via the river.

Making these connection then lead into learning all about the wetland animals that might be affect by our

pollution.

Before we were able to reach our culminating project we first had to learn some of the commonly seen

wetland animals that live within Albion near our Kalamazoo River. Since we had seen many animals and plants the

day we went to the Whitehouse Nature Center. I made sure to continue to include the animals and plants we saw.

The students did a quick phase 1 activity before I gave the students their reference materials (phase 2-labeling).

The activity included the students taking cards of the different wetland animals and plants and telling me what they

thought the names of the animals were, then where they thought these species lived, and lastly giving me some

descriptions of what they look like. The students did not like this because it made them frustrated with not

knowing all the animals. But immediately after the activity I gave them a reference sheet to label along with me all

of the animal and plant names, places of origin, and some descriptors.

Phase 3: Culminating Event

Once they had completed learning about all 8 of the animals and both of the plants, we began our

culminating project—Kalamazoo Wetland Dioramas. Each of the students needed to choose 2 animals from the list

of 8 and 1 plant from the list of 2 plants. Then we had several work days to complete the project. The first day was

all about the modeling clay. I had each of the students use their reference sheets to observe and try and create

their animals using the modeling clay. The next day we wrote about what our animal looks like on a “sloppy copy”

page (L.HE.01.11 ) (W.GN.01.04). I had printed off some information for the students to read from the internet as

well as over 8 books that I had gotten from the public and school district libraries (S.IA.01.14). The students were

encouraged to use the resources to look at their animals and read more about what they look like as well as where

they lived.

Student working on her “sloppy copy.”

Following their writing each student got their shoe box to fill either land or water. The students had

complete control over how what they wanted to portray in their dioramas. My only stipulation that I had was each

of the animals and plants had to be located in the correct spot along or within a river. I didn’t want to see a Bass

living on the land next to the water, while if they put a Great Blue Heron next to the water it would be appropriate.

The students also had a large box of craft items to choose from in order to be used for the students’ creative minds.

Lastly their “sloppy copies” where transferred onto their boxes for show purposes during the Learning Fair

(W.PS.01.01). Ultimately each box was unique and each student learned a little more about characteristics of a

river and river/wetland habitats (S.RS.01. 11).

Pictures from the Learning Fair