Our
Rainy Day Exploration
We had lots of fun on
our rainy day Nature Walk. We saw so
many slugs out for a Nature Walk too. We
looked closely at them outside. Then we
decided to bring some slugs inside our class to observe them even more closely.
We made our new Slug friends a cozy habitat. Welcome new Slug Friends. We hope you enjoy your stay.
We fed our slugs
lettuce and gave them lots of water. One
day we came to school and there was a TERRIBLE SMELL! It was coming from our
Slug Tank. OH NO!
That wasn’t the only
thing in our classroom that looked and smelled a little stinky! Our Gourds have
changed too.
A.G: it’s so yucky
(Plugged his nose).
C.C: So stinky.
M.B: It looks like
dead.
K.P: I see leaves and
grapes. They are cracking
the grapes and
the apple is dirty.
C.S: The leaves are
dirty.
E.C: Their making soil.
D.D: Why is it doing that?
A.S: They are getting
crunchy and old.
M.A: They are getting
super old.
J.A: The apples are
dirty.
B.D: The slug is dirty.
G.M: If you keep it
somewhere it gets dirty.
R.T: I see berries.
M.A: The grapes are
getting super old. We need
to take them
out.
J.M: The leaves are
changing colours. They are
going to
change colours again.
J.V: It’s so messy.
A.V: The leaf is slimy.
A.S: I see lines on the
slugs.
N.G: The leaves are
slimy. The slugs are eating.
C.H: The slugs are
going to eat the grapes.
E.L: It’s getting dirty
because everything is
getting old.
M.A: IT’S ROTTEN!
We wondered what we
knew about Rotten.
One friend said. “It smells rotten!” We
wondered what rotten means. Can our
slugs and gourds both be rotten? We
decided to investigate what we know
about ROTTEN.
What Do We Know About
ROTTEN
B.D: If you leave
something in a can and it doesn’t get air, it goes rotten.
E.L: When you leave,
leave lots of stuff in a bucket, and leave it for a long, it will get rotten.
N.G: When things get
old, when leaves fall down and stay there for a long time, they get rotten.
J.A: If you put food in
there. It will be very, very rotten.
E.C: If you put food in
the compost, the slugs will come. It
will be soft for the worms.
E.L: WE NEED TO FIND OUT
WHAT THINGS GO ROTTEN AND WHAT THINGS ARE NOT ROTTEN.
EXPERIMENT
TIME YES!
We made a list of
things that we thought would rot and things that we thought would not
rot. We recorded our choices on a chart.
Now all we have to do is find all of these things.
Things That will Rot **Things That Will Not Rot
Orange Potato
Carrots Plum
Pear Water
Banana Soil and Sand
Apple (red and green) Newspaper
Strawberries Lemon
Grapes Flowers
Lettuce Metal
Cherries Eggs Shells
Leaves (Outside) Wood and Rocks
We wanted to know more about how things get rotten so we
did some research on the internet. We documented our learning by writing and
drawing pictures.
We watched a time lapsed video of rotting food. Here are
some of our Rotten Research Observations: What do you see?
R.G: It is yucky, like a
rotten banana. Bugs! The
strawberry melts first.
A.G: Really yucky!
(Plugged his nose)
M.B: It looks like dead.
K.P: I see leaves
and grapes. They are
cracking the grapes. The apple is dirty. They are melting.
It will smell like garbage.
E.C: They are making
soil.
A.S: They’re getting
crushy.
Makayla: They are getting
super old. We need to take the berries out.
The strawberry disappeared. It melted. Garlic and potato don’t melt. The
potato decomposed last. It will smell
like garbage. My food got rotten at my
Grandmas house. We threw it in the
garbage.
J.A: The apple is dirty.
I see fruit flies now. The
potato is the same. It will smell yucky.
C.C: The apple is
getting from the dirt.
B.D: They are going
into the dirt. It’s watery
now. There are so many fruit flies now. It will
smell like a skunk.
R.T: I see berries.
J.M: The leaves
are changing to dark colours. It will smell icky.
J.V: It’s so messy.
Garbage
A.S: The leaf is
slimy, like play dough. Maybe
our things get gooey and slimy too. They’re
getting crushy. Some things melt fast and some
things take a little bit longer.
It will smell like see
weed.
K.M: It’s squishy.
C.C: So yucky.
N.G: It’s yucky and
squishy.
C.H: Like sea
weed.
A.G: My banana was
rotten and all black.
E.L: It is dirty
because it is getting older. It
will smell like poo. Ripe is good and rotten is
bad. It gets slimy.
A.J: It is all
different. They changed.
M.A: The air is
going out of the strawberry.
It melted, getting smaller and smaller. When it
rots, it gets smaller because air
came out.
E.L: It is shrinking and
changing shape.
A.V: It might be all
gooey.
When things get rotten they change colour like green,
white, black, gray and brown. They decompose and decay.
One friend said: "Out of decay, new things will
grow. Another friend added: Even flowers."
Isn't Life Amazing!
Decomposition Experiment Step #3:
Create our Decomposition Diary Title page. We drew pictures
of the things that rot and things that do not rot.
Here are our final Decomposition Diary Title pages.
We recorded our observations in our decomposition
diary. We looked at each item to see if
anything changed.
K.M: Water does not rot so I need to drink the water to
make it disappear.
S.G: The potato is changed. I see red, green, purple and
white.
A.J: The lemon got white.
B.D: The strawberries are juicy, rotten and grey.
J.M: The potato had little things and looks more brown.
I.A: The flowers are getting black.
C.S: I see the pear is soft, brown and squishy.
J.A: The pear is old, soft and brown.
A.G: The wood is the same.
C.C: I see water inside the strawberry.
G.M: The flowers are dry and need water.
E.L: The flowers are dry.
S.A: I see water (grape jar).
M.B: It’s all water inside (Strawberry jar).
N.G: The lemon is white here.
D.D: The apple is goo.
C.C: The pear is more black.
S.C: The apple is browner.
R.G: The flowers are going down.
A.V: The grapes are squishy.
K.P: The strawberries going to water.
G.M: The apple has a brown circle on it.
R.T: The carrots are all brown.
E.C: The newspaper and metal stayed the same.
C.H: The flowers are all crunchy.
M.A: The strawberries are squishy and juicy.
J.V: The strawberry is crushed.
Day 19-20: Here Are Some Of
Our Observations
J.V: The strawberry is crushed. Yucky!
C.H: The eggs shells are
crushed, yucky , bad.
M.A: The grapes have juice and it’s nasty!
E.C: The grapes are
rotten. It’s gross!
S.G: The banana is yellow, black, wet and soft.
A.S: The banana is black and
still smells good.
K.M: The banana bend and
has water around.
A.J: The pear smells bad and
is with water.
B.D: The banana and strawberries have juice.
J.M: The banana is stinky.
C.S: The orange still smells good.
I.A: The pear have chocolate
inside.
R.T: The water is not rotten.
I can drink it.
S.A: The lemon is hard.
M.B: The soil is the same.
It didn’t change.
E.L: The apples smell stink
and has water.
S.C: The banana is yucky and smells.
D.D: The lemon is white, hard
and cold.
N.G: The banana is black and smells like banana.
C.C: The pear has more juice
and smells horrible.
R.G: The pear has more juice.
A.V: The potato has leaves
around and has green balls on it.
K.P: The banana is black and has spots.
G.M: The orange is good.
C.S: The banana is smashed and brown, black and white.
A.G: The apples are green and
brown and smell rotten.
G.M: One apple is good and the other one is rotten.
J.A: One apple is green and
one has spots.
Day 39-40: Here Are Some Of
Our Observations
G.M: Leaves go rotten but not rocks.
A.G: The big apple is rotten.
J.A: The strawberries have green leaves.
C.C: The potato is white and
has water.
R.G: The pear made more juice. It is flat and brown. It has 2cm of
juice.
A.V: The pear has little white
thingys on top.
K.P: The banana is black and I see water all around.
G.M: The banana looks
different. It is yucky.
N.G: The apples are dark, brown and green.
D.D: The flowers are sticky
and gross.
C.C: The banana is coming out and I see bubbles.
S.C: The banana is still all
black.
S.A: The flowers look dirty.
R.T: The banana is squish and
has yellow water.
E.L: The lemon is white and smells like candy.
M.B: The whole thing is
getting rotten.
J.M: The sand looks like sand.
B.D: The plum is wrinkled and
I see little white spots on top.
C.S: One apple looks fresh and one has water.
I.A: The apple is rotten.
A.J: The apples are stuck together.
A.S: The lemon is hard and is
brown now.
S.G: I see one apple have brown and green.
K.M: The lemon is hard and
pointy.
J.V: The apples are crushed and sticky.
E.C: The banana is open has some
yellow inside.
C.H: Flowers have a white spider house on it.
M.A: The apples are squashed
and watery.
It was getting so close to our
Christmas vacation. We wanted to document any changes in our experiment. So we made a chart to record our observations
before and after the Christmas vacation. Here are our findings.
We still have more wonders
about how things decompose. What should we do?
Now we know that some things take a little bit of time to
decompose and some things take a long time to decompose. We wondered why our water, metal, sand, soil,
newspaper and rocks did not decompose at all.
Are there some things that never decompose?
M.A: Let’s make a decomposition
race. We can pick some things and see who will win the race.
E.L: We can pick something that we know rots very fast like a
banana and a strawberry.
E.C: Why didn’t the newspaper
decompose? It gets rotten in the compost. We need to put the things into dirt
to help it decompose.
M.A: Our experiment stuff has to be in the dirt.
A.S: Maybe the banana won’t
win the race if it’s inside the dirt.
E.L: To be fair, everything has to be in the dirt.
Then we received a special delivery in the mail. It was a see through compost container. This will really help us see which thing will
win our decomposition race.
We picked 3 things to
observe how they decompose. We chose a banana, a crumpled piece of paper and a Styrofoam
cup. We wondered which one would
decompose first.
Who will win the race?
We looked at our 3 things.
We began to notice some changes. Here are some of our observations. We documented
our learning by writing and drawing pictures.
Our
Observations
B.D: The banana peel disappeared.
We can see the sticker.
E.C: The banana turned
black and disappeared. The paper is not food so it didn’t rot, only fruits and
vegetables.
M.A: I see a little bit more yellow near the sticker. The paper and the cup are not going to be like this.
J.A: The banana is
black. I see the sticker.
B.D: The paper is dirty and wet.
R.G: The banana is
gone. I see the sticker.
K.M: I see the paper is
wet. The banana have water.
E.L: The banana is black and the cup is dirty.
A.V: The paper is up and down. I see the paper wet.
S.C: I see paper and one
sticker. I see a cup dirty.
R.T: I see a cup. I see
paper. I see a sticker.
N.G: I see paper cup is
dirty. I see a paper. I see dirt.
S.G: The paper got dirty. The cup dirty with black. The banana is down there at the bottom.
C.C: I see some black in
there. Paper is wet and the cup is full
of dirt.
D.D: I see the banana turned black.
I see the paper getting light. The cup is dirty.
E.C: What happened to the
banana? Nothing happened to the paper cup.
S.G: The cup is dirty and the paper dirty. The banana is very black.
A.V: The banana is gone. I don’t see the banana. I see the cup is
white. I see the paper is orange.
A.G: The banana is black.
The banana is gone. It decomposed
all up.
K.M: The banana is rotten and
black.
B.D: The banana is all gone.
It decomposed all up. The paper is darker now.
A.S: I see the sticker but not
the banana. The banana changed colours
to black. The paper is more darker. The cup looks dirty. The cup didn’t change colours.
M.A: The banana was yellow, then black and now is gone.
J.M: I see the paper cup is
gone inside the dirt. The paper cup and the paper are not rotten. The banana is rotten. I don’t see the banana. The paper cup is going in the dirt. Everything is going in the dirt.
Our Observations
D.D: I see a cup with dirt.
The paper is down because of the dirt.
The banana is gone all black.
E.C: I see the banana
rotten. The paper orange a little bit.
J.A: The only one left is the cup.
E.C: The cup is not food or
garbage. I see a little yellow juice
outside the cup. The dirt have juice.
B.D: The cup is not compost, not changed. I see juice. The juice is orange and the cup is dirty.
S.G: he cup is very
dirty. I see some yellow water. The cup can’t change because is white. The paper is clear. I see some rocks close to the cup. I see dirt.
I see the banana sticker, looks like a dollar.
E.L: The cup is the same. I
see the water yellow. Smells weird.
J.A: The cup is making
water. I see yellow water. The cup is paper not changing like the other
paper. The cup is covered with
soil. The cup is white and soil water.
Our Observations
M.A: The cup is not changing because it is a paper cup. The cup has water. The cup is not compost in the water. The cup has water or juice, I don’t know.
C.C: The cup is really
dirty. The cup is wet. The dirt is wet. I see some water.
E.L: The banana turned to dirt.
The paper is decomposing. The cup
is yellow.
B.D: The banana is dirt. The paper is wet. The cup has juice in it.
J.A: The cup is making more water.
E.L: The cup is changing to
yellow and smells weird.
Our Observations
R.G: The banana is black.
The paper is orange. The cup is
yellow.
A.V: The banana is gone. Paper is white and the cup is dirty.
S.G: The banana is rotten.
The paper is yellow. The cup is
yellow.
G.M: The paper is dirty. The banana is gone. The cup didn’t change.
G.M: Banana is gone. Paper
is down. Cup inside the dirt. The cup is old.
I.A: Banana is gone. The paper is little. The cup is down in the dirt.
S.C: Banana is rotten. The
paper is yellow. The cup is rotten.
C.C: The paper is buried in
the dirt.
Our Observations
J.A: It’s all gone, only orange now.
A.G: The cup is water. The paper is yellow. The banana is gone.
C.H: The banana is gone.
K.P: The banana is gone. The paper is yellow. The cup look brown.
A.S: The paper is wet. The
cup is yellow. The banana has rotten.
C.S: The banana is decomposed.
M.A: The banana is squished.
D.D: The banana is gone. The paper is yellow.
Our Observations
K.M: The banana is gone. The
cup is yellow.
A.J: Banana is black.
R.T: The paper is yellow. The banana is gone. The cup is yellow.
E.L: The banana is gone. The paper is dirty. The cup is yellow.
J.A: The banana is black.
The paper is orange.
I.A: The cup is very dirty.
N.G: The paper is red. The
banana is gone.
M.B: The cup is brown. The
paper is yellow. The banana is black.
We were
looking closely at our decomposition experiment. We noticed that the banana disappeared. We
noticed that the paper is all crumpled.
But the Styrofoam cup is still there.
Some people thought that it changed and some people thought it did not
change.
E.C: The cup did not change.
M.A: The cup didn’t get small.
We don’t want this garbage.
R.G: Maybe it doesn’t decompose.
A.S: Maybe it is going to change tomorrow?
E.C: Maybe we should leave it for 100 days.
R.G: I like 100 days.
B.D: It’s like a new experiment.
We
decided to take the cup out to look at it more closely. We wondered if it would
decompose after 100 days! Stay Tuned.
First we looked at the banana.
8 Friends thought that the banana had decomposed and 20 friends thought that
the banana was still there.
C.C: The banana is deep. It’s
hard down.
R.G: The banana is little like
a circle at the bottom.
S.G: It’s very deep.
A.S: Maybe the hard pieces is
the banana. We have to take all the dirt out.
E.C: The banana is a fruit.
It decomposes first.
C.C: The banana disappeared
forever, gone forever.
J.V: I can’t find it. The
banana is in the mud.
R.G: The dirt covered the
banana. You can’t see it anymore.
G.M: The banana is rotten now.
Then we looked for the paper.
Where is it? 14 friends think the paper is
still a rectangle shape and 1 friend thing the paper will not be all together.
J.M: The mud is covering the paper. I see it already.
M.B: I think the soil is
covering the paper.
C.C: The paper is dirty.
B.D: The paper first was light
and then turned to dark.
E.L: The paper is the same but the difference is that it is
crumpled up.
A.S: The paper is wet. If we touch it it will break and turn to
half.
Now the waiting is over. We can finally check to see if our Styrofoam
cup has decomposed after 100 days. 7 friends thought that the cup would change
and 18 friends thought the cup would not be changed.
E.C: The banana juice leaked to the other side on the cup.
C.S: The cup changed by
getting dirty.
A.V: The cup was white and turned yellow.
M.A: The cup stayed the same.
It just has a crack on it because it got crushed by the soil pushing it down.
E.L: We should get a new cup and compare it to the dirty cup.
C.C: I think it will be the
same just not dirty.
M.A: The cup is still there.
We have too much garbage if we bring Styrofoam cups to school every day.
B.D: Maybe it will never go
away.
M.A: That is not good. It
will hurt the earth.
E.C: We need to find out if it
ever can decompose.
E.L: We need to find out. We
can go on the internet to find out.
A.S: If it is true then we
should never use Styrofoam ever again.
E.C: It hurts the Earth forever, even when we get so old.
Here is what we found out in our Decomposition Research.
How long does it take to decompose?
Glass: NEVER!
Cans: 200 Years!
Plastic: 1000 Years!
STYROFOAM: 1 MILLION
YEARS!!!!!
E.C: That’s longer than the dinosaurs lived.
It is not good news! It is shocking! We need to take action now!
We need to make a promise to
OUR EARTH!
That’s why we made a promise
to eat only healthy foods like fruits and vegetables. AND we have NO GARBAGE in our lunches or
snacks. At the end of the day our garbage can is empty. We only have some
recyclables like paper.
We have been recording and counting all the fruits and
vegetables we eat each week.
You can count on Team
Wonder World to take of the Earth.
That means:
No Plastic (unless we can
reuse it)
No Glass (unless we can
reuse it)
No Styrofoam
No Cans
No Packaging on our foods
or snacks
Food Scraps go in our
Compost
TEAM WONDER WORLD SAVES THE
WORLD!!
Come And Join Us!
We Can Save The Earth Together!
AMEN