Week of January 19-23

This was the first week Ms. Maline was teaching this Brainy Bunch! Due to school being closed on Monday for MLK Day, we weren’t able to see fifth grade. This means we will be looking for even more progress, reflection and research with your Passion Projects. Be ready to come in Monday and share all of your incredible findings!

In fourth grade each of the classes worked together to solve the Enviro-Mystery! We jumped into the shoes of an environmental engineer and helped the Mayor of Greentown identify the reason his plants and animals were taking a turn for the worst! We conducted an experiment to compere samples from different locations around town against the data they collected from 3 years ago. Due to our investigative minds we figured out that pollution was spreading through the SOIL! This was groundbreaking because for the first time we began to see how the entire ecosystem was connected.

Our 4th grade HW assignment was to write a letter back to Mayor Higgins reporting our findings and action steps the town needs to take to stop the spread of pollutants and prevent this from happening in the future. These letters should be shared in the 4a, 4b, or 4c folder online for review.

Third grade had the chance to work as environmental engineers as well! First, we spent time brainstorming types of problems environmental engineers address and more importantly what causes these problems. Next, we broke into pairs and worked to identify how humans are contaminating our ecosystem! This was important for us to see. After reading Saving Salila's Turtle we knew that environmental engineers work to clean up contaminates in our air, water, and soil but this helped us to learn that environmental engineers work to figure out the source of these problems too. The time we spent talking about contaminates both artificial and natural, got us thinking about the impact this has on our future. Third grade ended our time together by talking through the article given for homework. This article it talks about the effects dirty water has on people’s lives.

Our 3rd grade HW assignment is to read the article that links dirty water to health problems, hunger, poverty and education and complete one of the following tasks.

Create a public service announcement using at least one fact from each effect. Then, make a 30 second video and email Ms. Maline (anne.maline@edison.k12.nj.us) or prepare to perform it for the class. Please script anything you need in you G&T notebook.

Create a news broadcast summarizing the effects of bad water. Then, make a 30 second video and email Ms. Maline (anne.maline@edison.k12.nj.us) or prepare to perform it for the class. Please script anything you need in you G&T notebook.

Write a story in your notebook about a family that experiences the effects of dirty water and predict how their life might be different if a well or other project is built

Here are the links to the articles if you need them

Health: http://thewaterproject.org/health.asp 
Hunger: http://thewaterproject.org/hunger.asp 
Poverty: http://thewaterproject.org/poverty.asp 
Education: http://thewaterproject.org/education.asp