1.1: Environmental Issue Instruction

Return to Objective 1: Curriculum & Instruction

Our 60 pre-kindergarten students have a weeklong unit on migration. During this time they travel to a local park, Patterson Park, and work with our Audubon partners to learn and act out migration. They read informational texts about migration, colored birds in flight, and look at pictures of different animals that migrate. Students write about migration in their own developmentally appropriate ways. During this week, teachers connect migration to all content areas and students even migrate to recess. Allowing our pre-kindergarten students to learn about migration, both in school and in Patterson Park, help them observe and appreciate animals they live near. This fosters an appreciation for the environment from a young age. The pictures below are from the migration unit as taught in October of 2021.

61 Kindergarten students also participate in the Audubon partnership and regular nature walks around Commodore in order to grow their observation skills and appreciation for nature in all surroundings. On October 19, 2021 students attended their first Audubon field trip for the school year. They walked 10 minutes to Patterson Park and observed different habitats that exist right in the park. After the trip, teachers reflected that it was important for students to know that nature does not exist only in Patterson Park, but also around them everyday. Students wanted to look for nature in more urban spaces-- even closer to the school! Classes began taking nature walks to look for specific parts of habitats, like producers, (shown below) on school property and at Castle Park, a smaller park across the street from the school. On their most recent walk students were able to start looking for signs of spring. How exciting!

Our 82 first grade students continue to center their environmental education around the Audubon Partnership. Students are excited to participate in hands-on environmental lessons in their classrooms, around school property, and at Patterson Park. In first grade, students become eager entomologists using bugs as examples to help them understand that living things adapt to changes in their environment to help them survive. On October 5, 2021, students hiked to Patterson Park to observe insects in habitat gardens and learn about different insect adaptations. Then, back in the classroom, they connect their learning to adaptations of other living things they encounter in their science unit. Pictures from their outdoor learning at Patterson Park are shown below.

Our second grade students are regularly involved in Green curriculum, partnerships and field trips. From September to November of 2021 our 90 second grade students participated in a science unit on the life cycle of plants. This unit is based around Next Generation Science Standard 2-LS2-1, which asks students to "Plan and conduct an investigation to determine if plants need sunlight and water to grow." As a part of the unit this year students germinated lima beans and jade plants from cuttings. One student proudly showed off her jade cutting for Commodore's social media. Second grade students were able to determine what plants need to move through their life cycles.

They also attended field work at Great Kids Farm on November 4, 2021 and November 16, 2021. This field work titled “Plants are Cool” gave students more hands-on experience with seed identification, seed germination and plant identification. Second graders also participated in a Great Kids farm field trip in the fall of 2019.

Their science units have inspired some of the 2nd graders to initiate and participate in a litter clean up.

Additionally, some second grade students choose to participate in an optional projects to extend their learning. During February of 2022, their projects related to a unit on Bodies of Water. Students had two choices for their project: learn about how to protect the health of the Chesapeake Bay, or learn about an animal that makes its home in the Chesapeake Bay. Pictures of their amazing projects are below. 16 amazing students created these projects!

In third grade, 87 students participated in a month-long unit of study on Civic Duty and Sustainable Decisions. They identified an environmental issue within our school community and decided to exercise their civic duty by writing personal letters to our City Councilman. They identified that the recycling was currently not being picked up from our school and wrote about the negative impact this has on the environment. Not only did they address the issue but the proposed ways that we could raise money to reinstate the recycling program. On March 4, 2022, the students hosted members of City Council at the school to discuss these issues in person and come up with an action plan. Students asked questions about recycling and City Council responsibilities, and the Council Members walked them through a day in the life of their jobs. In the photos below, you see the 4th grade students writing letters and then the meeting that resulted due to their efforts. We cannot wait to see a resolution from this collaboration of active young citizens!

In fourth grade, 93 students participate in classroom lessons and field trips that let them explore local habitats and how the organisms that live in them interact. On November 15th, 2021 students went to Patterson Park with Audubon and investigated different relationships between organisms in an ecosystem. They explored the park and discovered examples of each type of relationship.

On February 14, 2022, 4th grade students at Commodore attended a field trip to the National Aquarium where they toured the aquarium and participate in a classroom lesson called, "Chesapeake Bay Exploration". During this hand-on learning experience students got to know oysters, their role as filters in the ecosystem and how they are important indicators of Bay health.

On February 28th, 2022 students used their learning of different relationships to design a landscape that supports the organisms in that ecosystem. This connects to standard 4-LS1-1, in which students explore the importance of internal and external structures of plants and animals that allow them to survive in their habitat.

In fifth grade, 84 students participated in a Terrarium Design Challenge in February 2022. The Terrarium Design offered students the opportunity to create models as they investigated the water cycle and how water interacts with living and nonliving things. Students experimented with different types of soil and different layering patterns. Students used their terrarium models as hands-on examples to study how matter cycles between air, soil and living things (LS.2.B).

Unit 3 of Baltimore City’s sixth grade science curriculum is called, “Where have all the creatures gone?” This unit teaches students how populations change using the trout population in the Great Lakes as a case study aligning to NGSS MS-LS2-1 which asks students to "Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for the effects of resource availability on organisms and populations of organisms in an ecosystem." All 107 6th grade students participated in the unit of study during the 2020-2021 school year. Examples of student work from April 2021 (virtual school) are included, but this unit is taught each school year and enhanced with student writing assignments that require students to explain cause of population change. 110 sixth grade students will participate in this same unit this spring (2022).

The student-created parts of the assignments are the mostly purple typing in yellow boxes. Student names have been removed from the assignments.

Student work #1 In this activity students are analyzing how one species’ population impacts another species.

Student work #2 In this reading students investigated the impact of invasive species.

Student work #3 and #4 In this final project, students analyzed several graphs and wrote evidence-based arguments to explain why they believe the trout population in the Great Lakes decreased.

In 7th grade, students participate in cross-curricular math and science module on Wildlife Conservation that focuses on deer population. In science class students observed various environments around the school that modeled as places the deer population lived. Then they carried out simulations in the classroom based on these model environments. In math class, students use knowledge of proportional relationships and ratios to determine whether populations of deer were even in a given National Forest. Students also engage in discussions on why it is important to have even populations of wildlife and reflected on the importance of Math when it comes to understanding the environment. Photos of their group collaboration in science class are shown below as well as examples of their assignments.

Eighth grade students at Commodore participate in a unit focused on adaptations. During this unit, 109 students study adaptations that make animals survive and reproduce in specific environments and examples of microevolution. They examine how populations change over time to adapt to different conditions. Students see that some changes to the environment are being caused by humans. They see the effects of human behaviors on populations that are able to adapt (and some that are not). Students model natural selection, examine population data and climate data and write about their findings. Examples of their writing assignments are linked below.

During this unit, eighth grade students also get to participate in a field trip and squid dissection lesson at the National Aquarium. This is always a memorable field trip as many students have not been to the aquarium since they were young and that have certainly not dissected squid before. During the dissection lesson, students build on what they have been learning about evolution and adaptations. They observe the squid's body systems and consider what makes it unique and able to survive. As they tour the aquarium they observe a range of living things that survive in different environments. Additionally this trip reinforces the message of care for the Earth.

We were thrilled to finally get to hold this trip in December of 2021 after not getting to take a group since 2018! Shown above are 4 pictures from December of 2018 and 4 pictures from January 2022. 109 eighth graders participated in the trip in 2022.

At Commodore we work to make sure green school values are a part of all that we do. In creative writing class, an enrichment class that middle schoolers rotate through for one trimester each year, 90 6th, 7th and 8th grade students (3 classes) participated in an arts integrated creative writing project. They reused recycled paper scraps from other classrooms to create torn paper collages that match haikus. The haikus and collage illustrations all reflect seasons of the year. The work samples shown below are from September of 2021.