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Outdoor Classroom
The Branch School has always fostered a love of the outdoors. From the conception of the school, nature study which includes both plants and animals has been a part of the curriculum. Outdoor learning ties together and extends what students are learning in the classroom. Our Outdoor Classroom program includes weekly lessons with all classes that deepen students’ understanding of nature and natural systems. These lessons range from facts about wildlife to hands-on composting and their own gardens. Students plant vegetable gardens each semester, and interact extensively with our “Best of Texas” wildscape and pond. Outside experts contribute to our program, such as by bringing “owl friends” or their tarantula collection to show students living examples of the science they are learning, or by teaching plant propagation techniques. Field trips have included birdwatching with experts at Edith L. Moore Nature Sanctuary and Bear Creek Park, or visiting The Houston Museum of Natural Science. Older classes regularly incorporate wildscape measurement or observation projects into their activities.
Our program is recognized as a community resource. Houston Audubon Society honored our Outdoor Classroom in November of 2005, when the school received the Lucie Wray Todd Environmental Education Award. This major award was given in recognition of our outstanding commitment to providing our students and our community with practical and high-quality programs and resources. In 2004 The Branch School’s Wildscape achieved official recognition as a “Best of Texas Wildscape” and National Wildlife Federation “School Habitat Demonstration Site,” thanks to a grant from the Susan Vaughan Foundation. The school has also been an official community garden partner for five years with Urban Harvest, a Houston community garden nonprofit organization. The Outdoor Classroom partners as well with the school’s chapter of Roots & Shoots, the educational program of the Jane Goodall Institute. Our lead Outdoor Classroom teacher, Ann Hightower, has given workshops at Urban Harvest’s annual August “Teaching in the Outdoor Classroom” for the past two years.
In 2005-6 The Branch School received a Toyota Tapestry grant for a Comparative Wildlife Census. We used two sets of computer/camera monitoring equipment to watch wildlife around our campus wildscape and around the Edith L. Moore Nature Sanctuary. Here is the students’ own report of their findings:
Our class has just finished The Toyota Grant project. The purpose of this project was to compare habitats. We compared the habitat here at The Branch School with the habitat at the Edith L. Moore Bird Sanctuary. We wanted to learn what animals lived where and whether there were more animals or more kinds of animals at either of the places.
This was a fun and exciting activity and we learned many things. In addition to learning which animals live at The Branch and which at Edith L. Moore we learned how to use a computer program called iBrowser. IBrowser allowed us to look at pictures on a disk. We saw what animals come out at night and we learned more about nature.
In order to do our project we had to follow many steps. First cameras were set up at The Branch and Edith L. Moore. These cameras took pictures of anything that moved. The cameras used an infrared light to detect heat.
Mrs. Bucher then burned the pictures onto a disk. We each got a disk with pictures on it. We used the program called iBrowser to look at the pictures. We looked at each picture and recorded in Microsoft Word what we saw and what time we saw it. Unfortunately we forgot to record where we saw it. Then Andrew put all the information in one chart in Microsoft Word. Then he transferred it to Excel so that we could sort it by date.
Next we looked at all of our material and found out what animals we saw at The Branch and what we saw at Edith Moore. We compared the two to determine what differences there were.
We found that all the same animals were at The Branch that were at Edith Moore, except we saw a skunk and an armadillo at Edith Moore and we saw several cats at The Branch. At both places we saw raccoons, bats, birds, insects, possums and squirrels. All in all we feel we have an excellent habitat here at The Branch that attracts many types of animals. Edith Moore is an animal sanctuary and we feel that if we can attract animals like they do we are doing a good job of replicating an inviting habitat for all animals.
Sincerely,
The fourth and fifth graders at The Branch School
During the 2006-7 school year, a grant from The Joseph and Mary Cacioppo Foundation provided funds to build an 8’ by 12’ pond-and-bog, and to purchase two computer microscopes to enhance study of its inhabitants. Students studied pond plants and animals ranging from ostracods to Gulf Coast toads. Fall semester wrapped up with the youngest three classes writing their own plays, incorporating the creatures they have come to know through their Outdoor Classroom experience. Our microscopes got a great deal of use, providing up-close looks at both small (ostracod and amphipod) and large (dragonfly nymph) pond denizens. We also participated for the second time as a school in the Houston Audubon Society Birdathon. Several classes visited the nearby Edith L. Moore Sanctuary as part of this activity, and the school as a whole saw over 50 species of birds.
During the 2007-8 school year, our theme is “Nature recycles everything.” A grant from The Joseph and Mary Cacioppo Foundation has purchased rain barrel systems and solar-pump irrigation systems, and we will look at native plants and animals in our Wildscape, and their contributions to ecosystems.
To view what's happening in our Outdoor Classroom, visit our Gallery on this site.
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