The California Drought

Across California, regulations have been put in place to help conserve water during our current drought. I was extremely surprised to find that many of my students were not only unaware that we were in the middle of a drought, but were also confused as to what that meant and how we might conserve water. 

A friend of mine from another school shared her easy reader nonfiction article on the drought with us and we began our short study on the California drought and its effect on our state. We watched news segments on the drought and read about water conservation on the internet. We even looked at before and after images of lakes and rivers near ur in California. Below I've posted one of the amazing final products from our study. Students in groups each created a "Shadow Puppet" video informing people about the drought. "Shadow puppet" is one of my new favorite apps to use and I think it worked great for this project! 

My little Environmentalists

Thanks to all the learning done during our Expedition on humans and how they affect nature, my second graders are the best little environmentalists ever! They are super recyclers and they've been picking up trash everyday at recess all on their own.

I've even had numerous parents tell me that they cannot get their son or daughter to stop googling endangered animals or telling them about how humans can negatively influence the environment without realizing it.

I'm sure after a while the parents are going to get annoyed, but I'm so proud!

Below are some of the simple illustrations and sentences they created to tell about how they can be a positive influence on the environment.