Casco Bay Animal Research Projects in 1st and 2nd Grade
/“I’ve loved watching them get really excited about new facts and information. Sometimes they will come to our meeting with drawings of salmon they’ve done themselves, or I’ll see a drawing they’re doing at a completely different time that happens to include some detailed salmon. It’s been great to watch their engagement with the material.”
The 1st and 2nd grade classrooms have been buzzing with animal chatter over the past couple of months during their animal research projects. Every year 1st and 2nd grade teachers choose a theme that becomes their year-long focus for their inquiry and place-based curriculum. This year’s theme has been Casco Bay! So far students have learned about the islands, geography, and coastline of Casco Bay before turning their focus to their current project of animals. 1st and 2nd graders in Marjorie Haley’s and Katie O’Toole’s classes have been learning about the local habitat by researching one of four animals in their research groups. After watching short video clips and learning facts about salmon, humpback whales, piping plovers, and harbor seals, each student chose their top three animals to learn more about and were divided into research groups for their projects. From there, students have truly taken ownership of their research and have loved sharing their findings with their classmates.
While learning about one of the four unique animals, assistant 1st/2nd grade teacher, Simon Dutton, has noticed how excited the students are both during their group meetings and throughout the school day. He shares, “I’ve loved watching them get really excited about new facts and information. Sometimes they will come to our meeting with drawings of salmon they’ve done themselves, or I’ll see a drawing they’re doing at a completely different time that happens to include some detailed salmon. It’s been great to watch their engagement with the material.” Students have been learning how to read and understand facts about their animal before writing their own sentence or ‘fact fragment’ instead of copying a sentence word for word - turning their notes into complete sentences. 1st/ 2nd grade teacher, Marjorie Haley shares, “we use our [Casco Bay] theme to teach the skills we need in an engaging way - students in 1st/2nd grade need to learn research skills so they learn how to read nonfiction books, take notes, turn notes into complete sentences, and compile a research paper through the lens of our unit.”
Their research has led them to some incredible facts that students have loved sharing within their research group. In the salmon group, students have learned about smoltification, the physical process in which salmon can go from living in saltwater to freshwater. They have also learned that salmon are able to smell their way back to where they were born and were intrigued by the physiological changes the salmon makes as it journeys from the ocean back to where they were born to lay (7,500!) eggs.
Before February break, students in all four groups drew pictures of their animals and labeled three to five body features that are important to their research animal. Since returning from February break, students have been working on their final interactive group projects - the culmination of all their hard work. The humpback whale group is making a life-sized juvenile whale (24 feet!) to hang on the wall, the salmon group is making a puppet show about the life of a salmon, the piping plovers are making stuffed animals and paper mache birds, and the seal groups are making a board game as well as stuffed animal baby and adult seals. Students are eager to complete this final step and share their interactive projects and findings with the other research groups. After learning about the animals, they’ll turn their focus to the people and places of Casco Bay - boat building, lobstering, working waterfront and lighthouses. Way to go 1st and 2nd grade!