This week we were joined by Austin Thomas, another graduate student in the Biology Department at AppState. He loves botany and he wanted to share his passion with the EcoRaiders. He taught them how to identify trees by looking at their leaf shapes and introduced them to how to use a dichotomous key. We are really grateful for experts like Austin taking the time to create age appropriate resources and leading the kids in nature activities. It's awesome to be team up like this! The tree cards we used and the dichotomous key are both available for download by clicking on the links. Some of the trees we identified out in our backyard: Tulip Tree, Bitternut Hickory, Sugar Maple, Shagbark Hickory, Flowering Dogwood, Yellow Buckeye, American Beech, Musclewood, Black Locust, Pin Cherry, Schumard's Oak, Red Oak, American Basswood. Next time you're around the school, check out the hiking trail out back and see how many trees you and your kids can identify! In the Spring we will be doing more work on the trail and the EcoRaiders will be making permanent signs for the trees. Thanks to the Vitale family for helping out with the snacks this week!
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The EcoRaiders have been busy these first two weeks since the inauguration of the club! Last week we made wildlife habitats along two walls of the school, where there was previously just very dry, bare earth and a bunch rocks. Spotted already using the habitats: bumble bees, butterflies, leaf insects, birds and a salamander. Over the weekend several families help with an impromptu creek clean up. Check out the pictures in the Photo Gallery. There were people cutting down big trees that had fallen on the creek during the last storm, removing big branches along the trail and picking up lots of trash. The hiking trail behind the school is already looking much better and we're excited to partner up with ASU's Trail Crew in the Spring to do some more work refurbishing the trail and making some new footbridges. Rob Plummer fixed the old bridge that is still in place over the creek and replaced some of the broken boards so that people can use the trail until we put in new bridges. Thanks Rob and everyone else who helped with the creek clean up. During this week's regular EcoRaiders Club session, we focused on salamanders. Watauga county is one of the regions in NC with the highest diversity salamander diversity, with 21 known species. North Carolina itself, boasting 60 species, is the state with the most salamander species in the country. Herpetologist Monica Winebarger from AppState was our guest speaker and lead the salamander searches, and Mallory James, a Biology undergrad also from App who is helping out with the club this year, ran the station about salamander morphology. We also had parent helpers Angela McMann and Sabena Maiden running art and science stations. Students learned about what makes a salamander a salamander, the different species that they are likely to come across in their school's backyard, proper handling of specimens and the ecological niche salamanders occupy. We also had some fantastic salamander artwork! Species of salamanders seen in the creek so far this year by EcoRaiders: Seal Salamander, Blue Ridge Two-lined, Black-bellied, Blue Ridge Mountain Husky and Shovel Nosed. For more pictures, check out the salamander study album in the Photo Gallery. A HUGE thanks to Madelyn's "Nana" Linda for replenishing our supply of acrylic paints! We love to integrate art into our science studies. Next week we will be focusing on tree identification. The first day of EcoRaiders was a flurry of chaos but a total success. We had a group of 32 kids eager to get started who worked non-stop in order to turn two desert-like areas alongside the wall of the school, into two beautiful wildlife habitats. The project was completely student ran. They were told what the goal was and students picked their projects and ran with it. Our objective was to provide an area with water, shelter and food for wildlife such as birds, toads and insects. We got native wildflowers from the ASU Biology Greenhouse to attract pollinators; rocks, bark, flower pots and such for shelter; and birdbaths and bee fountains to provide water. We even made a bat house in the hopes to provide a place for bats to roost and raise their young too. As soon as we finished, there were already butterflies around checking out their new hang out! Thank you to our amazing parent helpers: Sabena Maiden, Carla Parker and Angela McMann, and our ASU interns Ginny and Jenny, and to everyone who donated money for club materials so far! We have $130 that will be put into future projects. A great start to EcoRaiders 2016-2017. Check out the pictures from Day 1 below: |
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June 2017
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