Tadpoles!

The JS3 students are being required to stay for a 2-week extension past their national exams and I was tasked with teaching them during that time. That’s right…9th grade students thinking that they’re going home for a 3 month break and being told, they’re actually staying for 2 more weeks of classes taught exclusively by me. Though I was skeptical of the possibilities of success, it hasn’t been that bad and it’s even been pretty fun at times!

I recently discovered that my school has a stream less than a quarter mile away from it…exciting! Some colleagues and I went and explored and then I decided during the topic of pollution we would take a field trip down to the stream. Thanks to my extensive experience with environmental field-based excursions during grad school I was comfortable with what data could be collected, observations made, and questions asked.

It was awesome! I had so much fun, the kids LOVED being amongst nature. They asked so many questions, collected temperature data, water samples, drew conclusions about habitats locations and observed adaptations of plants and animals. We were able to see so many tadpoles (only located in the clean, running water), leeches (in the more polluted water), figure out that the thorns on the acacia tree were to protect it from animals and the small leaves were to prevent loss of moisture. We saw the taller and greener grass in the stream bed and saw the tree-lined path.

After the adventure, the students learned about Microsoft Excel during our computer time and entered their data into a spread sheet data table. It was pretty exciting! Every once in a while in education, idealistic plans actually come together and when they do, it more than makes up for all the other times when they don’t.

Here are some pictures from the excursion as well as some others:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=77981&id=501312909&l=fcef6b6668