Brockway Field Trip

1S at Brockway Nature Preserve
(click the link to visit the Hopkinton Conservation Land and Trails Site about Brockway)

Today's blog post was written collectively by 1S. We have 4 goals for narrative writing. 
1. Write a story in sequential order using the words First, Next, Then, Finally.
2. Include details
3. Tell how you felt about your experience
4. Provide a quality ending to your story

Our class had a great time visiting the John Brockway Nature Preserve on Thursday. We went with Ms. Nichols' class.

First, on our field trip we met with Kevin Wall, Environmental Educator. He took us ponding. Ponding is when you catch bugs in a pond. We used nets and dug through the muck at the edge of the pond to find giant water bugs, backswimmers and other creatures. We found salamanders, snails, a leech, tadpoles, dragonfly nymphs and damselfly nymphs. Before we left the pond, we let them go back into their habitat.




Next, we went with Mrs. Chapman, Environmental Educator. We identified a wetland by digging up the soil, touching it and smelling it. We observed that the soil was cold, wet, muddy, stinky and clay-like. The soil in the uplands was dry, like garden dirt and it smelled earthy and like pine needles.

Then we went to the vernal pool. The soil was bouncy, dry and smelled like salad or sphagnum moss. The vernal pool was dried up because there was no water. It got dried up by the sun. In the springtime it will fill back up by the rain and melting snow.


Finally, we went up on the look-out and we could see an old beaver lodge. We identified another wetland by finding wetland plants like cat-o-nine tails and again, smelled the stinky, mucky soil. We finished our field trip by hiking back to the trail and seeing the Welcome Tree. It's big and fat and it welcomes everyone when they first walk onto the Nature Preserve.







On our trip we learned:

• That backswimmers can bite.
• That backswimmers have 2 sides. One side is dark to look like the pond so predators from above can't see it. The other side is white/blue to look like the sky so predators from below can't see him either. That's called being camouflaged. 
• Bullfrogs lay their eggs in ponds not vernal pools because they take 3 years to become an adult bullfrog. If they layed their eggs in a vernal pool they would dry up and die.
• The soil in a wetland acts like a sponge and it absorbs water to help prevent flooding.
• Wetlands act like pillows because it's where animals lay their head (it's their home).
• Wetlands act like a strainer to filter and clean the water.

We had lots of fun. It was a great adventure and we were excited to see all of those creatures.