Keystone’s Environmental Club

What are the consequences of a childhood removed from nature?

Chilling!

After spending two weeks teaching at this year’s GOT TECH camp I am once again amazed at what you can learn when you collaborate with other teachers and students.  One of the new tools I learned about was Photo Peach!  This is a free tool and it will make a great free slide show with music.  Check out Keystone’s Outdoor Classroom on PhotoPeach below.  It shows a few of the pictures that have been taken at OC activities so far this year.  There is definitely more to come!  I hope you enjoy!

It was a pleasure to meet Sandy Abrams, Manager of the Farm Bureau office on Germantown Parkway.  He presented  the check for $500 from Farm Bureau  for the Agriculture in the Classroom grant.  Mr. Abrams was excited to hear about the work we are doing at Keystone and invited us to come back and share more with the board!  We hope to do that real soon!  Many thanks to Farm Bureau for their contribution!

On Monday approximately 40 ninth-grade students from Briarcrest came to Keystone to work with students in grades Pre-K to 2nd!  Each Pre-K to 2nd grade teacher had two Briarcrest students join them for half the day.  The service project included the students sharing a character ed book and reading it to the class, working in small groups and assisting students with reading and/or math skills, and last, but not least, helping the students plant seeds so we have some plants for the OC.  Zellie (I hope I’m spelling your name right) and Laney joined my class.  My students were in LOVE!  Zellie brought a book to read the kids and they were captivated.  Laney was very patient as she helped students get their seeds planted.  By the time we picked our classes up from lunch the girls were hand-in-hand with the little ones!  See some of the pictures below!  The partnership between Keystone and Briarcrest is just beginning, but what a great partnership it is!  Thanks Briarcrest – we hope to see you again soon!

Our Chinese Water Dragon has been residing with me at home since Christmas break! He has been in a smaller habitat, but he’s been warm and fed daily. With all the snow days we had I could not take the chance of leaving him at school with no yummy crickets to eat! Well, I was finally able to take him back to school last week and get him settled back into his bigger habitat! I finally found a nice tree perch for him. Dragons love to climb! I wasn’t sure how soon he would climb on it, but when I went to check on him in the lab last Thursday, there he was perched at the top looking out into the school’s mall! He looked great! Check him out!

It’s so cold outside this morning! I love the spring and can’t wait for March to get here especially after viewing the Channel 5 Extra Credit segment about the OC! Sandals, capri’s and t-shirts – that’s my kind of attire! Channel 5 came to Keystone to film a lesson in the OC in late September.  But the segment didn’t air until November 16th. It took a few more weeks to get a copy of the video!  But at long last and many temperature changes later it’s here.  It’s about 1 1/2 minutes long so it won’t take long to check out!