COME TO THE FIRST ANNUAL SCIENCE AND THINK TANK EXPO!

Do you want to see what your kids have been raving about all year?

Have you been secretly yearning to build with Legos or discover your own "Smarts"?

If so, then please join the Maury family at our First Annual Science and Think Tank Expo!

Goodbye, so long, farewell our friends...

On Friday, May 4th, it was time to say goodbye to our Shad fry. Ten students from Mrs. Dorsey's class who had not had their chance with our fish during the week,were each given one special fry to transport to the river. They took this job very seriously, as you can see!            

    

                    

In addition to these cups, we had to bring ALL of the other water in the tank to ensure than all fry made it back into the river. Students suggested I take special care with the jugs, so we strapped one into a car seat!

  Once at the river it was time to learn about what were going to do...

                                   walk over a small bridge...

 

                                    over a hilly meadow...

 and to a lightly flowing part of the river to say goodbye to our fry.

We sang to our fish, filled our cups, cheered our success and set our fry free.

          

  

 

 Thank you to all of the volunteers, chaperones and students for your amazing engagement in this process. A special thank you to Living Classrooms and the Anacostia Watershed Society for getting us the amazing program!


And... WJLA 8 caught the whole special event. If oyu haven't seen it, check out Maury on the news here!

And now a special invitation.... please join Maury for its First Annual Science and Think Tank Expo!
               
Until next time!


-Mrs. Ford

Shad Week 2012

THEY ARE HERE!!!!!

A 2nd grade group meets with the Living Classrooms lead as well as a representative from GenOn, the funder for our amazing program. He was brought here to see the great work your students are doing as an exemplary Shad program school.

The Science Lab... I mean Maury Front Lobby :)

  

Something fishy is going on here at Maury!  This morning the Shad started hatching ! It is quite  quite amazing about  what looks like a clear bubble start wiggling and pop out a small, white "fish". ( I'll call it a fish but really it looks like a 3mm worm).  


This week has been truly amazing. I never knew we had so many budding scientists. Your children embraced the tough side of science this week by really looking at the life cycle of the Shad and understanding, or trying to, why we started with so many live eggs but are ending with only a few.  If you have not stopped in, please do so tomorrow as this will be our last day with our fish friends. On Friday, May 4th at 9:30am, the 1st Graders will pack up our Shad fry and head for Bladensburg Waterfront Park in Bladensburg, MD to release them. 


Until then, the best way to understand the many exciting parts of this week is to see the pictures and watch the videos below. I can't promise stellar videography, but it sure has been fun watching your children learn and grow-- and watching it back on video is so cool too.

Well done students and parents! So far, we still have some live ones ;).

::raises a glass of apple juice to Maury and cheers::

-Mrs. Fishy Ford

Enjoy the pics!

Students in Ms. Kelly's class work to sort eggs and measure the volume of dead eggs.

Testing the water quality. Too much Ammonia or Nitrate, or a pH that is lower than 7.2 is NOT good!

Uh oh!!! The ammonia level is getting too high! We had to add Ammo Lock three times since yesterday. Too much and all of our live eggs won't survive. 

Looking closely at the eggs.

"Do you see any clear ones?"

2nd Graders use teamwork to sort their eggs.

Mesmerized!

Also mesmerized!

1st Graders tallying the number of dead eggs in 10mL.

Still counting....

                

Stopping by after school to investigate.

We have many more videos and will add them soon, as well as pictures from the second part of our week and the release!

The Shad are coming.... IN A WEEK!

It doesn't take a piece of string to see that today would not be the best, or safest day for boats on our rivers. Due to weather conditions, our trustworthy Captain Jim, was unable to go out and collect our eggs today. For this reason, we will be receiving our new additions to the Maury family on APRIL 30th!

What does this mean?

1) Maury students will have a whole other week to learn about this amazing fish before it comes in its fragile state to our building.

2) The Be Water Wise team will have time to hone their water quality testing skills.

3)  The 1st grade field trip to Bladensburg Waterfront Park to release our Shad fry will take place on May 4th instead.

A new schedule of events for Shad week will go home in Tuesday folders.

Until next time,
Mrs. Ford

THE SHAD ARE COMING! THE SHAD ARE COMING!

Only a few more short days until our fragile Shad eggs arrive on site! Initially, we signed up to complete the Schools-in-Schools Shad Recovery Project for our 1st grade.  I should have known that Maury's young thinkers in all grades would want to be involved!  The project will now include all students in grades K-4, as well as Be Water Wise team members in Preschool, PreK and 5th grade.

While this project diverges from some of our other Think Tank Challenges and delves deeper into specific science content, we will still be utilizing many of our "smarts" and practicing some very important Habits of Mind.

This project will take a lot of diligent work by Maury thinkers. Students will test Ammonia, Nitrate and pH levels multiple times a day, and keep track of the water temperature.

They will also do "egg sorts" that will involve separating live eggs from the ones that have died.  Your children will be doing all of these things! Live eggs will be clear, and the ones that have died will turn white. It is crucial that they are separated because the decomposing dead eggs will poison the live ones with Ammonia and Nitrate! They have practiced using these petri dishes, clear and white beads and mini pipettes.

Please stop by our hatchery in the front lobby to read the questions that students have posed, answers to their questions, posters about the life cycle and to witness this exciting project.

In order to get eggs as part of the Schools-in-Schools program, the eggs must be collected from female fish and fertilized. Kindergartner Sophia Beffert ,4th grader Xavier Hill  and their moms Erica Beffert and Kim Frietze went on this expedition over Spring Break. What an experience!

Please don't hesitate to come and explore our wonderful Maury hatchery!

Until next time,
 Mrs.Ford

Think Tank in Pictures... Part 1!

Hello all Thinkers!

   As we return from spring break, I realize that I have not updated the blog in a long time-- and that's an understatement! I guess that we have been so busy DOING that I havn't taken a moment to post here and share! So please take this blog post as a "snapshot" of the last six week and a look into what's coming next.  Captions and more pics coming sooooon!

-Mrs. Ford

Third Grade takes on force and motion and begins their Rice Rangers Program!

Students in 1st and 2nd grade explore ramps, slope and take on the challenge of contributing positively to a group and inspiring teamwork!

 

Students in 3rd grade, along with a few 2nd graders work with Casey Trees to plant 7 wonderful new native trees in the front of the building!

 

The morning Be Water Wise enjoys bagels ( thanks Max!) while making water conservation signs!

Below, the Be Water Wise recess group makes Water Use Detective badges!

 

5th Grade learns about using a the flow meter bag to determine the water efficiency of their sink faucets. From their they explore what happens to stormwater runoff in DC and  complete a service learning project by cleaning up our block. Would you believe that we filled two large trash bags on Maury's grounds alone??

More coming soon!