Energy

This week, the students looked at what some of the at risk animals that they had studied had in common.  They found that the emperor penguin, the polar bear and the monarch butterfly were all in trouble because of global warming.  This had caused the ice flows to melt which impacted the survival of the polar bear and emperor penguin and affected the growth of  the monarch butterfly's host plant milkweed.  Students learned that global warming was a result of burning too many fossil fuels.  This happens when we use too much electricity and use gas and oil to power our vehicles.  When we do these things it result in too many green house gases drifting into the atmosphere.  

To learn what we can do to conserve energy, we had a scientist visit our school to teach us about alternative forms of energy (such as solar power) and teach us about energy conservation.

This week, the student also had an opportunity to plant milkweed in our Mountview garden to help our Monarch butterfly friends.  To connect with our learning on energy and the environment, the students learned how plants are able to turn greenhouse gases such as CO2 into O2 as they make their own food through a process called photosynthesis.  To add math and art into this concept, the students learned about radial symmetry and applied this when drawing their model of a flower performing photosynthesis.
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