On Friday, October 19th, Ms. Correia's class took their "Garden Fridays" to a whole new level. Instead of going out to the garden to simply maintain it's beautiful appearance, they went to the garden with a much deeper purpose - to collect data! Each Friday the students of F204 go out to the Outdoor Learning Center and pull pesky weeds that are endangering the health of our precious plants. This week, students partnered up and spread out into the different sections of the garden, tools in hand. Each pair kept track of how many weeds they pulled and then measured their longest and shortest weeds. Through this experience, these young scientists hope to discover which sections have the most weeds and how often it is necessary to go out and maintain these critical areas. 

While out in the garden, the fourth graders needed to use their communication skills to work together, they utilized their knowledge of measurement techniques to determine weed length using both metric and customary units, AND they had to make comparative observations to determine which plants were actually weeds, and which of their weeds qualified as the longest and shortest out of each bunch. Their brains were working big time, yet they were having a ton of fun!

Ms. Correia's class will be analyzing their results this week and will post what they've discovered as soon as they are able to. They are definitely looking forward to using this information and growing knowledge base during their next Garden Friday expedition. Check back for more Outdoor Learning Center updates!