January 25, 2012
By Hadley DeBree

Today we began class by exploring a few questions: Do you think it’s difficult for animals to survive in winter and why? What are two examples of animals that live here? How do you think they survive in the winter? Some great conversations came out of these questions and the students were excited to learn more about our local animals.

The first half of the class was spent inside reviewing the four essentials all organisms need to survive (food, water, shelter, and space). As most of the students knew this, we moved onto investigating the three strategies animals use to survive the winter: migration, hibernation, and staying active. We looked at a few examples of native animals that use each of these strategies and moved into discussions about the advantages and disadvantages of each strategy.

For the last half of class, we moved outside to play a game called “Wolf Pack” – a game which further explores the advantages and disadvantages of the wolf’s survival strategy. After playing a couple rounds of this game, we then looked around the school grounds for tracks. We weren’t able to find many, but hopefully we’ll find more next week when we have more time to explore.