Heron Network: student inquiry, local study, and presentations

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Our fieldtrips to the marsh (Lake Wingra @ Edgewood College) were for many years a favorite class activity. While those trips were diferent each year (depending on our adult volunteers), here's a good introduction written back in (I think) 1999 by Marie.

Mazzuchelli

by Marie

My favorite class field trips were going to Wingra Marsh every other Wednesday. The main things we did were make, clear, and mulch paths; look at water creatures; and look at land creatures (the trees). We also wrote stories at the marsh, realistic fiction, folktales, or fact. One person took pictures.

The trails we cleared were around Mazzuchelli. First, we picked up all the trash and separated recyclables from it so we could recycle them. Then, we cleared all the buckthorn out. There were about eight piles of it--the width of three Mr. Waglers lying down, and twice as tall as one of him standing up. Then we cut up the buckthorn and mulched the paths with it. Also, on the other side of the road was a big clearing with stumps you could sit on. In the center was a big log with rock designs and plants around it. We ate snack there.

In Mazzuchelli, we looked at the water critters we scooped up in the park lake. The big hits were: a leech, a pretty yellow water mite, a turtle, and a fight between two different creatures when they got mixed up.

We each got assigned to a tree. We got to measure how thick it is around all the way, to bark and leaf rubbings with your leaf, find what kind of tree it is with a sheet. Once we found out what kind of tree it is, we described the area around it. Then we wrote poems about it and sketched a leaf. My tree was hollow. I hope nobody ever cuts it down.

Then there was writing stories. My mom led that class. She gave us tips on how to use tastes, sounds, sights and feelings of Wingra. I wrote the best story I have ever written. I am going to get it published in a website or something Mr. Wagler set up. My story is about Ann and Jeff, two middle school kids who are trying to catch the people who are destroying the marsh illegally.

Helen's mom was showing us the non-native plants that came to the marsh, and told us stories about how they got here. She told us that some of the problem was, well, US!

If you'd like to see more essays, descriptions, drawings, photos, poems, and fiction from this multiyear MIM project, go to the Mornings-in-the-Marsh web site built for us by Alice's dad (Mitch Nussbaum). Unfortunately, there's tons of great student work I didn't save.

 

In 2003 and 2004, my students explored the Park Street corridor near our school. Here's what it looks like on the web site of the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures, and here it is on Google Map.

I'm as excited about posting my first blog as I was when I wrote my first email message! Back when David Wirth was still teaching at Lincoln, he created our first Heron web site. After he moved on, our web site got grey faster than my beard.

I want to post some of the work my students used to do. Allthough they are now in middle school, high school, college, and beyond, I'm sure some of them will one day find this new web site, and enjoy seeing their work here.