Part of something larger

Second grade went on a neighborhood field trip yesterday, tracing the path that water takes from the stream on Gordon’s campus to nearby Narragansett Bay.
 

Second grade is at the start of a conversation about water, land, and Gordon’s connection to the larger ecosystem that will continue through their Middle School years.
 

Third grade science has historically focused on Gordon’s pond.
 

Those students lead an ongoing conversation about the evolving needs of the flora and fauna in Gordon’s pond, a space they’ve come to know well through play and which they will learn to care for in partnership with Gordon’s Buildings and Grounds team.
 

This is science work, but also design work and practice in advocating for institutional change: over the past five years, third grade has successfully lobbied for a temporary moratorium on play near the pond, the removal of some invasive plant species, plantings to prevent erosion, a replaced aerater, and a new dock.
 

This is work the current second grade take over next year - expect to hear from them about preventing salt runoff from the roads next winter, and other ways to improve the pH of the pond.
 

In the years that follow, they’ll continue to advocate for Gordon’s wild spaces in lessons that combine advocacy, hard science, and hands-on outdoor education: restocking the fish in the pond, tracking temperature, pH, nitrate and phosphate levels, turbidity, dissolved oxygen in Gordon’s stream, replacing invasive species with native plants on the banks of Gordon’s wetlands, and, of course, serving as leaders and food producers in Gordon’s Hilltop garden.
 

And it all starts here, in second grade, thinking about the spaces where they’ve played and how they connect to the larger world that surrounds Maxfield Avenue.

 

More photos here