After two weeks off it was so nice to be back with everyone this Monday. We were welcomed this morning by fresh snow falling from the sky. This gave me the idea; our morning activity would be making our own snowflakes with coffee filters. Each student can color a design and then get it covered in snow. The snow then melts and makes the colors become tie-dye. It’s so easy and fun!
After morning meeting and snack we needed some time to warm up so we went down to the field and played in the snow. Some of us looked for tracks, and we found some mouse tracks and tunnels in the snow! Others worked together to start building a snow shelter/wall, it was challenging because the snow wasn’t packing snow, but they still persisted and worked hard. It continued to snow throughout our morning and noticed that the snowflakes were so clear and we spent time collecting them and noticing how different they can all look.
The rest of the morning we spent exploring Beaver Pond. On our way we brought some tracking guides to see if we could find any fresh snowy tracks, we found a few squirrel tracks! To our surprise there we no tracks but our own at Beaver Pond. While at the pond we all explored the ice/slush covered pond. We all took rocks throwing them trying to break it, but none of them broke through. I then took a stick and poked the ice to find that on the edge it was more than an inch thick! After I broke through the ice much of the group started to collect the ice and pile it up too. a question was brought to our attention, why is there slush on the ice if it is frozen? What a great question! We learned the answer starting to talk about snow, snow is a great insulator, its why snow shelters keep you warm, why small rodents love to explore the subnivean zone (the space between the snow and the ground. The snow traps the warmth below it, so the warmth from the pond is being trapped and thus warming the ice and the snow to melt and create slush.
After lunch we warmed up again playing in the snow and then started to work on our shelter that we started the last meeting. When we got there the shelter had been blown down so we learned that we needed to pick a more stable area for us to build. We moved our sticks and started to work on our framing again.
We then journaled inside listening to so music. We had fire building on our schedule but the students wanted to help me build a big fire. Together we learned how to collect dry sticks in the snow, and then build a log cabin fire. Once it was lit we enjoyed our afternoon snack around the fire and then everyone helped me put it out with snow.
At the end of the day we discussed our December conservation action activity. Next week we are going to spend some time focusing on the birds that are still here this winter to prep for the Christmas Bird Count that happens between December 14th- January 5th. You can check to see if there is a count circle near you that you can join too!
