The fascinating world of the Orca K-8 school garden!

life cycle!

You can’t play them but they still look cool! We have been getting our art on this week in the greenhouse with this cool project. It really illustrates the fact that salmon have a life cycle that is similar to humans and just as fascinating. As our salmon change from alevin to fry, we get to see the change first hand (and in our cool accordions).

durp durp durp- looky looky!

The final percentages

Your homework this week for 6th grade science…..watch an hour of TV?!?! Yes- and please count the food commercials and what they are for.

Students tallied up these food commercials in an effort to better understand how TV influences our eating habits. Then we came up with percentages for what food commercials were for what kinds of foods.

The average child sees 40,000 commercials a year during 1,460 hours of TV viewing. Studies prove that kids who watch more TV have worse health and lower nutritional knowledge in general. How does this happen? Well, we thought that analyzing what TV commercials are trying to sell us could help us improve our media literacy. Can it improve our health? Maybe. Students had some incredible reflections on the data and they really are looking at food and food advertising with a critical eye. they got to share their finding with the school through their own subversive “advertising” campaign.

We donated over 1,000 books to RSK School in India. this was the same school that we just helped build gardens at in November 2011. The school is very excited to get these books and they will be having a library for the first time. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this amazing giving project.

The salmon in their alevin stage are starting to swim around a little bit. They are becoming parr- the next stage in their life cycle development. Kindergarteners have made an incredible poster using their art skills- check it out.

They're growing!

salmon life cycle poster in kindergarten hallway

Not much is growing in the garden, but the swiss chard is growing like crrrrazy. I love greens but I was never really exposed to them as a kid, and this was a great opportunity to do that. Chard sushi! I cooked up a pot of rice, chopped up some carrots and cucumbers, added a little rice vinegar & soy sauce- and Voila! A delicious snack and some pretty fresh exposure to chard. Chard is high in anti-oxidants & vitamins A,K, & C. We plucked them fresh out of the ground and blanched them for 1 minute in boiling water. This loosened them up and made them easy to roll. Most students really enjoyed this snack and it was a lot of fun to be eating garden food again.

In the middle of this BEAUTIFUL and sunny winter, we took some time to set up a obstacle course that mimicked challenges salmon face in the migration patterns. We had students become both bears and human fishermen on the obstacle course. The slippery salmon had to try and avoid them while “swimming” between logs and over “rocks”. We used common gym equipment to model these obstacles. The students had a lot of fun and they maybe got a better understanding of the challenges our baby salmon will face as they grow up.

salmon life cycle comic!

We have really got into exploring our amazing coho salmon that are hatching here at Orca. We get to study them up close and celebrate them through artistic adventures such as our giant comic book life cycle in the hallway. Plus we get to drink delicious Orca mint tea while in the chilly greenhouse. The Coho salmon are in the alevin stage and growing healthy. Check them out near the office!

Today we broke out the blind folds and got down to understanding the different tastes- sour, salty, sweet, bitter, and umame. It was a fun journey through the world of taste. We compared grape & apple juice with our nose’s plugged, and lo and behold- it was hard to tell the difference. Smell influences 80% of our taste experience. This activity kicks off our food and nutrition unit this winter where we will be exploring the science of what we eat and how it affects our bodies and minds. Plus we will be examining the media’s influence on what we eat and how companies use science to manipulate our taste buds & get us to buy things that aren’t so healthy for us. Let’s get deep into it!

Donate now!

We are collecting books of all shapes, sizes, kinds, and reading levels for our friends in Hyderabad India. This is the school I built rooftop gardens at. When I inquired about their school library, I was shown a small, locked metal cabinet with some very dry & academic books. I thought it would be a great idea to really hook them up some great picture & chapter books. I think reading books sometimes is a luxury that we Americans take for granted. I have no doubt that these books would be greatly appreciated and used. Reading for fun is a great way of learning how to read, developing imagination, and even simply opening young people’s minds. Drop the books by the main office by February 7th. Maybe you have tons of children’s books gathering dust on a shelf, give them a new life in India! Garfield High School is sending some students there to develop some computer labs at various schools and they are willing to carry the books for us. Do it!

Got old Books?

Orca has invited salmon eggs back for the 3rd year in a row. We get them from the Issaquah salmon hatchery and explore some great curriculum about salmon life cycles, habitats, and Native American history. This project is always a big highlight of the school year. In a few months we will carry the baby salmon down to Seward Park and release them into Lake Washington. But for now they are just breaking out of their egg sacks and becoming little “alevin”. Drop by the front of the main office and check them out!

We use this great curriculum for some of our activities- www.fs.fed.us/outdoors/…/Curricula/Salmon-Curriculum.PDF

They are hatching!

250 Coho salmon eggs!