These projects are intended to provide the middle school students with the time, space, and equipment to pursue their own investigations. Several students have already found an area of interest. One student is investigating the microscopic structure of plants, another is observing and researching slugs, and a third is investigating water bears. Over the next few weeks, I will assist the other students in identifying an area of interest. In September, we began a yearlong focus on vernal pools.
Vernal pools are temporary wetlands that provide important breeding habitats for many amphibians.
We saw a slide show on vernal pools, visited with a marble salamander, a spring peeper, a red-backed salamander, and a gray tree frog. We visited the site of a dry pool and surveyed the wooded area around the pool. We found many red-backed salamanders and noted that most of the trees surrounding the pool were maples. We collected some soil from the center of the depression to take back to school. In the classroom, we added spring water to the soil in a ten-gallon aquarium.