Environmental Science

Hydroponics is a method of growing plants without using soil. This technique instead uses a mineral nutrient solution in a water solvent, allowing the nutrient uptake process to be more efficient than when using soil. Agricultural learning walls and projects in a classroom and throughout a campus provides students with the following learning opportunities:

• Key Knowledge, Understanding, and Success- Classroom hydroponics gives students a chance to engage in critical thinking and problem solving, using a real world system with live plants.
• Challenging Problems and Questions- A learning project is framed by a meaningful problem to solve or a question to answer, at the appropriate level of challenge. For classroom hydroponics, these questions can range from simple plant science experiments all the way to entrepreneurship and upper level challenges.
• Sustained Inquiry-Most lessons end when the text books closes. With a hydroponics-based learning project, students have a focal point for a sustained process of asking questions, finding resources, and applying information.
• Student choice and voice-A classroom hydroponics project gives students a chance to make some decisions about the project, including how they work and what they grow
• Student Pride-Students have the chance to make their project work public by explaining, displaying and/or presenting it to people beyond the classroom. The pride and accomplishment is evident when the student is showing off a plant they have grown from seed. These are fantastic projects to show off in a science fair or open school event. The students can even bring the veggies home to cook!

Benefits of school gardening for students:

• Gardening offers hands-on, experiential learning opportunities in a wide array of disciplines, including the natural and social sciences, math, language arts (e.g., through garden journaling), visual arts (e.g., through garden design and decoration), and nutrition.
• Environmental Stewardship and connection with nature is strengthened. When children learn about water and energy cycles, the food chain, and the peculiar needs of individual species, and when they feel a sense of connection to a certain species or individual plant, they have a reason to care about all the forces that impact that plant’s future. 
• School gardening offers children opportunities for outdoor exercise while teaching them a useful skill. Gardens containing fruit and vegetables can also help to revise attitudes about particular foods.

Pets in the classroom will be used to bring learning about our environment to life. Classroom Pets Stimulate Learning! Classroom animals are wonderful resources for teachers to make learning fun in all subjects!

-Pets provide new and engaging ways to teach science. Students could observe the turtle in its habitat and write about what would happen if different organisms move in to the same habitat with the turtle.

-Pets enrich the classroom experience.

• Even kids with no exposure to animals or nature in their home environment can see, feel, touch and make connections to the wide world of animals.
  • Observing and caring for an animal instills a sense of responsibility and respect for life.
  • A pet brings increased sensitivity and awareness of the feelings and needs of others—both animals and humans.
  • Kids learn that all living things need more than just food and water for survival.
  • Students will see directly how their behavior and actions affect others.
  • Studies show that the presence of animals tends to lessen tension in the classroom.

Pets Encourage Nurturing.

Pets Build Self-Esteem

Pets Teach Responsibility

Poultry Farming studies will allow our students to learn about the life cycle of chickens, harvesting eggs, and more.

Students will have an opportunity to learn and explore the following:

• What is the proper food source for the birds?
• How often should our birds get water?
• The proper habitat/Coup for chickens?
• What needs to be provided in the habitat to sustain life?
• How eggs are produced by chickens?
• How eggs should be cared for or incubated before hatching?
• What makes an egg good for food consumption versus good for hatching?
• How does the chicken help our environment? How does our environment help sustain the chicken?

Alternative energy, by definition, is any source of energy that doesn't use fossil fuels.

You have probably also heard of renewable energy sources, which can often be the same as alternative energy sources. While alternative energy is pretty much anything but fossil fuel, renewable energy comes from natural processes that replenish themselves. They also tend to be clean energies that don't pollute.

There are several forms of alternative energy. Our students learning will focus on solar energy and wind energy. Students will learn that using solar energy and wind energy helps the planet by reducing our carbon footprint. This reduction of pollution also helps our environment.

Our students will study how solar energy helps us in the following ways:

• Students will learn how solar panels can be used as another source to gain energy for power.
• Providing power to animal habitats outside
• Tracking the solar energy produced daily, weekly, and monthly.