Fourth Grade Science Field Trip At School III

In many states and provinces, fourth grade students learn about decomposers. It is an opportunity to discover together what healthy soil looks and feels like, and to compare fertile soil and poor soil. 

On this blog, I encourage schools with a grassy schoolyard to add a low-cost, low-maintenance naturalized area to create a healthy habitat for your neighborhood's living things, including schoolchildren. They can play in it at recess, but they can also observe and study it during classtime. See the following posts for background information and suggestions: Buy In and Begin, Plant for Pedagogy, Sixth Grade Science Field Trips at School (sixth grade is encouraged to select the best location), and Seventh Grade Science Field Trips at School (seventh grade is encouraged to plant the first shrubs and trees). As part of this effort, your fourth graders can team up with the third graders to prepare the soil in the selected area this spring.  It's an opportunity for a multi-class effort, but the following soil activities are not dependent on that effort at all.

 

Curriculum expectations are always based on the Ontario Ministry of Expectations. Many of the activities will reinforce, rather than teach, those expectations. As such, no assessment ideas or rubrics are included. 

Understanding Life Systems: Habitats and Communities

Overall Expectations:
• analyze the effects of human activities on habitats and communities;
• investigate the interdependence of plants and animals within specific habitats and communities;
• demonstrate an understanding of habitats and communities and the relationships among the plants and animals that live in them.

 

If the third graders made a composter during the late fall, you can arrange with their teacher(s) to have them do a brief presentation of it to your fourth grade class. They, in turn, can work together to respond to that presentation to teach third grade a little about the decomposers that got the job done in the composter.

 

As third and fourth grade teachers, plan on a Science Field Trip at School, asking for parent volunteers as you would for any other field trip. On the Field Trip day, divide the classes into groups. Each group needs:

• a spade
• pieces of plastic or fabric sheeting
• a handout about healthy, fertile soil, like this beauty from the US Department of Agriculture
  

 
The adult in each group leads the children to several parts of the schoolyard. They cut slices of soil out of the ground in an out-of-the-way grassy area, a heavy-traffic area, a shady area, and out of a landscaped area.  The point is to compare each slice of soil. Lay them on the sheeting. What do you see?

Referring to the handout, learn about healthy soil: it's full of life, it's dark and crumbly, it holds moisture, it is full of nutrients. Is the school's soil healthy? Why or why not? Which slice looks healthier than the others? Brainstorm about it together. The adult leader should not be content with simplistic answers; ask the students 'Why' or 'How' questions repeatedly.  What do farmers and gardeners do to make or keep soil healthy and fertile?  

 

This is where fourth graders can contribute insights about the decomposers that they are learning about.  In fact, if your school grounds or a neighboring property has an area with mulch, trees, plants, insects and birds, your fourth graders can lead the third graders in a scavenger hunt from the University of Wisconsin that can be found here.  You, the teacher, will need to read it over in advance so that you can review with your class the information and preparation that you need to know and do.

 

If the third graders had a worm composter in their class during the winter, the last way in which they can collaborate with you is to donate the red wiggler worms to your class, so that you can construct a Macroinvertebrate Manor. Vertebrates are all creatures with a skeleton. Invertebrates, as you can guess, are creatures without them. Most of them are tiny, microscopic even, but some of them are Macro -like worms.  Now you know who the Manor is for.  All the instructions for it, from the California Academy of Sciences, are found in this printable PDF.