Special Appeal to Create a Grant Pool for Inquiry-to-Action Biodiversity Projects for 22/23
In small groups, or as a grade level, students engage in inquiry-to-action projects to impact positive change. Many of these are focused on projects for Biodiversity Park. Grants of $100-$500 will provide support for student-led projects, aligned with content standards, to enhance Biodiversity Park.
Kindergarten - “Hummingbird Habitats” will create ecosystems to attract hummingbirds to our park. This project provides hands-on learning and observation opportunities for students to learn about hummingbird habits and habitats. They will learn how to maintain an “attractive environment” for hummingbirds. Students will answer these questions:
What are hummingbirds?
What do hummingbirds tell us?
How do hummingbirds survive?
1st Grade - “Backyard Bird Habitats” will engage students in an inquiry process that leads them to understand how to create healthy ecosystems that attract birds. They will plant bushes and native plants that attract birds naturally as well as install and maintain bird feeders. Students will answer these questions:
How do birds take care of their babies?
Why do birds migrate?
How can we create backyard habitats for birds?
2nd Grade - “Pollinator Plants” will engage students in creating gardens of native plants that attract pollinators that are so beneficial to healthy ecosystems. The inquiry process allows them to dig deeper into what kinds of plants attract birds, butterflies, bees, and other pollinators. Students will answer these questions:
What are the adaptations of animals that help them survive?
How do birds, butterflies, and bees contribute as pollinators?
What native plants attract pollinators?
3rd Grade - “Life-Cycle Gardens” will engage students in an inquiry process to help them understand how to create and maintain environments that ensure healthy life cycles of plants and animals. Creating a butterfly garden might be a project they pursue. Students will answer these questions:
How can we create sustainable and diverse habitats that promote healthy life cycles for plants and animals?
What habitats are sustainable in Colorado?
4th Grade - “Colorado Wildflower Gardens” focuses on the native wildflowers that grow and thrive in Colorado. Creating an exemplar wildflower garden will engage students in the process of learning how plants and animals survive in Colorado and how they can create and maintain gardens that ensure healthy life cycles of plants and animals. Students will answer these questions:
What are the internal and external structures of birds that help them survive?
How have birds adapted to help them survive?
5th Grade - “Creating Compost for Gardens” engages students in creating compost to be used in our gardens. They will help create and maintain a raised compost area to be used as fertilizer and for soil amendment in Biodiversity Park. Students will answer these questions:
How does matter change and move between plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment?
How can we positively influence the interactions of spheres in the natural world?
What are some ways our community uses scientific ideas to protect the Earth’s resources and environment?
6th Grade - “Solutions for Biodiversity” focuses inquiry and student projects on designing solutions to increase and or maintain biodiversity in our community. Students look at current issues and then determine how to increase biodiversity and/or create exemplar learning areas in Biodiversity Park. Various projects will be designed and presented for funding. Students will answer these questions:
How can we design solutions for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services in our community?
What is the cause and effect relationship between resources and the growth and survival of organisms?