Julia's Research Fair

Everything in Spanish! Wow!

Bailey and Julia discussing observations

Bailey and Julia with their project

So today was the Third Grade Research fair. Each class had a project, and different teams of students studied different aspects of the project. For example, Julia's class studied the pond ecosystem. They went across the street and gathered pond life (water, weeds, rocks, tadpoles, snails, insects, etc.) and created four aquariums. One aquarium they left alone (intact); in one, they removed all of the living things that are "decomposers" (clean up the dead stuff); in one, they removed all the rocks, sticks, and non-food items; in the fourth, they removed all of the pond plant life and replaced it with plant life from the forest (dirt, oak and maple leaves, grass, twigs, etc.) Each group came up with an hypothesis about what would happen to their assigned tank (Julia had the tank with the forest plants), and then they made daily observations and journaled about what they saw. Simultaneously, each student was assigned one animal or plant to research (Julia had damsel flies --- other kids had tadpoles, duck weed, snails, etc.). And they created wonderful displays of everything they learned. The kicker??? EVERYTHING IS IN SPANISH.....all the research, all the journals, all the displays.....and today, when the kids made their presentations and answered questions? ALL IN SPANISH. WOW!!!

So Julia tells me about this fair at 8:00 PM last night. I was surprised -- and have to work the next day. I tell her there is no way I can go on such short notice. She is disappointed, tells me how important this is to her, and offers to call my boss (!!) to ask him if I can go (she said -- "Your boss likes me -- he'll say yes if I ask!"). SO I went ahead and emailed the team to let them know I would be an hour late to work.........it was an hour very well spent! I am so impressed with these third graders!