Embedded Files
Program Dates: 2026 dates TBD - usually in spring, multiple sessions on multiple days to various school groups
Program Times: 10 AM and 1PM (if two sessions)
Program Description: See Field Trip Outline below
Docent Roles: Lead one of the three educational stations in accordance with the Field Trip Outline below and the parameters of the specific group attending.
# of Docents Needed per Session: 3 - 4
Contact: Addison
2023 KWEE-Salisbury Zoo
Field Trip Outline
Total field trip time: 90 minutes (25-minute rotations)-5 minutes for rotating groups
Station 1: Zoo Walk-Education Stage<Beaver<Red Wolf<Retention Pond<Bee Hive Pollinator Garden
TO BE UPDATED (In recent implementations, docent/staff has used a single wipe-off poster instead of individual sheets.) Begin by giving each student a clipboard with a half-sheet scavenger hunt and a marker. Instruct students that they will be looking for the six items on the top half of the page when we begin to walk to the red wolf exhibit. Go over ground rules: no running, please stay with your group, do not pass me I am the line leader, and keep your eyes open to look for the items on your sheet. Explain that they might not find everything, but if you do to circle the item when you see it, NOT before.
In the wolf building, have the students take a seat. Go over each item and ask the students if they saw it and where. Ask the students what makes some of the items different than others? Guide them to the response that some of these items are alive and some are not. Living: bamboo, crow, and red wolf. What do these living things have in common? Help students arrive to the conclusion that living things grow, eat food, and live in a home. Clarify that plants and trees don’t “eat” like animals do, but get their energy from the sun.
Now ask students: what do all living things need to survive? There are four basic things: food, water, shelter, and space. Students will usually name food and water, and may repeat that living things live in a home. We can call this shelter, or a habitat. To help illustrate the need for space, hold your arms in a circle in front of you and ask the students if they would be happy if their entire class had to live in that small space. Of course, we wouldn’t—we need more space!
Let’s focus on living things’ homes, or habitats for a minute. We humans are living things too! Ask students what their homes look like. Are there multiple rooms? Where do you eat, or sleep, or play? Like us humans, animals will change their habitat to make their homes. Where do animals make their homes? Students may say in water, underground, in the sky, or some other habitat. Today, we’ll be focusing on animal survival and needs.
As you lead students in a walk down through the Zoo, have them look at four different exhibits to identify each animal’s shelter in their habitat on the bottom half of their scavenger hunt. When they find one of these examples, stop to observe it and discuss. Where is it located? What does it look like? What is it made of? Was it easy or hard to find?
Red Wolf-den
Beaver-dam
Retention pond-bird houses/nests; Great Blue Heron nests in trees
Pollinator Garden-bee hive
Remind them that humans live around Wicomico River, and have done several things to change the area around Wicomico River. Discuss the various things they may see around the Zoo—houses, parking lots, parks etc. Have students flip their scavenger hunts over and start looking for examples of how humans have changed Wicomico River. Walk them back to the stage and have a seat.
Discuss the examples of humans changing the area around Wicomico River. Showing a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, have students decide if they think these changes are healthy or not healthy for the animals living around Wicomico River. Then ask students if humans need any of these changes. For example, we all need houses to live in, and we need cars to travel. The only thing we don’t need on this list is trash and littering. So, with that in mind, what can we do to help make the Zoo and its surrounding better for the animals? Ideas include not littering, picking up trash, and planting trees and other plants. Encourage students to keep thinking about ways we can improve other animals’ habitats.
Station 2: Water Exploration-Behind Morgan Center TO BE UPDATED (In recent implementations, staff has collected the water samples before students arrive and the station has taken place at the Ed stage.)
Walk students to the Morgan Center, establishing some ground rules before bringing them behind the Morgan Center. Students must stay with their group at all time and no tapping on glass—must ask adult for bathroom breaks. Start with the question—what animals live in the water? Here at Wicomico River, we get many types of fish, insects, frogs, turtles, and critters called macro invertebrates. Allow students to look at the creek.
What are macro invertebrates? Let’s break this word down. Vertebrates are animals that have a spine or backbone, like us humans. We can feel our spines when we feel the middle of our backs. So if vertebrates have a spine, what are invertebrates? Animals that don’t have a spine! What are examples of invertebrates? Snails, slugs, insects, shrimp, crabs, spiders, clams, etc. Some invertebrates are so tiny that we need a magnifying glass to see them, but macro invertebrates are big enough to see with our eyes.
Let’s take a closer look at a few examples of macro invertebrates (and maybe some other animals if we get lucky. Using the white plastic spoons, students can scoop up macros and examine them more closely. Just remind them to move slowly and carefully, to be respectful of each other and of the critters, and to be gentle. What do we notice about these macros? How big are they? Do they have shells? Do they have lots of legs? What do you think they eat? What eats them?
What do all these water animals need to survive? Students coming from the nature walk might say food, water, shelter, and space, which is all true. However, one thing water animals need more than others is clean water.
Does water in a pond stay the same all the time? Of course not; just like other parts of nature, water changes over time. How might the water change throughout the year? Have students turn to a partner and discuss and share their ideas. Thanks to the seasons and changing weather, the water of Wicomico River will warm up in the summer and cool down in the winter (sometimes it even freezes over!). The water level may rise and fall depending on how much it rains. Humans might change the water of Wicomico River as well. The water sometimes becomes more polluted by things like trash, fertilizers, and dog poop.
Take a look at the water from the Wicomico River. Do you think the water looks healthy? How do you think it looks during other seasons in the year? Show students two photos of Wicomico River. One photo is taken during the winter, and the other is taken in the spring. How are these two photos different? The most noticeable difference is that the spring pond water is covered in decaying algae. Why is there so much decaying algae in the summer but not in the winter? Algae grows very fast when it’s warm and sunny, especially when fertilizers from nearby houses and gardens get into the water. In fact, sometimes algae can cover the entire pond! This is called an algal bloom. Which picture looks healthier? How do you think an algal bloom affects other animals living in the water? It may make the water dirtier, it may cause animals to die, and it can keep underwater plants from getting sunlight.
Do we think the macros we looked at today can live in that unhealthy water? Are some able to live in dirtier water than others? If you have time, show students the macro t-chart separating macros into clean water and polluted water. What were some of the macros we have in our pond? Did we find more macros for clean water or polluted water? Encourage students to be thinking about the health of Wicomico River and how it affects the plants and animals as they visit other stations.
Station 3: Watershed Model- Ed Center
Let’s begin with a question: what is a watershed? Has anyone heard of this term before? What do we think it means?
Many people who hear the word “watershed” think of a building or container that stores water. However, in this case, the word “shed” doesn’t mean a storage building, but the verb “shed,” like a dog shedding its fur. Just like that dog, mountains and hills “shed” water as it flows downhill until it reaches the lowest point. So, a watershed is an area of land in which water drains down to the lowest point.
Watersheds are everywhere! Water is always shedding off mountains and down into streams and rivers. No matter where we are, we are always in a watershed. But what happens when a lot of people live in a watershed?
Have students observe the Enviro-Scape. What do we see? There are hills, rivers, roads, and some areas with open dirt. This looks like a great place for people to live, but what do we need if we want to live here? We need houses! Hand a few students a model house and have them choose where to place their house.
Great! We have houses. What else do we need if we want to live here? We’ll be needing cars to travel! Hand a few other students some model cars and have them add their cars to the Enviro-Scape. What else do we need? Where does our food come from? We’ll need to add a farm to our watershed, and we can add a cow and a tractor to this farm. Continue this pattern with some of the other items so that each student gets to add something to their watershed. Some other items that can be added include boats in the water, bridges to connect the roads, bulldozers to build roads and houses, trees, and a fence.
Now that we have set up where we’re going to live, how will this affect the watershed? For example, cars are a source of pollution, or things that are harmful for the land. Drop some rainbow sprinkles around each car, boat, and other vehicle to represent pollution. What about our farm? What do cows produce? Add some chocolate chips by the cow to represent cow poop. Now let’s think about our construction site. What are all the machines digging up? Lots of dirt! Add brown sprinkles to the construction site for dirt. Finally, we can add white sprinkles to the roads to represent road salt and chemicals, which we use to drive when roads are icy and unsafe.
We’ve added a lot of unhealthy things to our watershed. What’s going to happen when it rains? Have students hypothesize for a bit, then use a spray bottle to squirt water on all the sprinkles and chocolate chips. What’s happening in our watershed? Where is all our water going? What’s happening to all the pollution, dirt, and cow poop? It’s all gotten into our water. Does this seem healthy or unhealthy for the animals living in the watershed?
How can we make the watershed healthier? Have students share some ideas. For example, we could try using cars less often and walk or ride bicycles sometimes. We could clean up after our cows and other animals so that animal poop doesn’t get into the water. We can also plant more trees and bushes, which are great at protecting our water. Demonstrate by adding some more rainbow sprinkles to the road, then adding a green felt strip along the river and spraying the sprinkles with water. What did our plants do? They blocked the pollution from getting into the water!
Encourage students to keep thinking about ways we can have a more positive impact on our watershed as they visit other stations during the field trip.
Curriculum Embedded Kindergarten Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience: KWEE
Essential Questions/ Driving Questions (Unit objectives)
- What do plants, animals including humans need to survive?
- How are plants, animals including humans changing the environment?
- How are humans affecting land, water, air and or living things in their local area?
- What are some solutions to reduce human impacts and how can we communicate the solutions to the community?
Enduring Understandings (what students will know and be able to demonstrate at the end of the kindergarten)
- Plants and animals need water to survive
- Animals have different food needs
- Animals need to eat food, plants do not need to eat food
- Plants need sunlight and water
- Plants and animals including humans need other resources to survive
- The needs of plants and animals including humans are met by various places
- There are specific relationships between plants, animals including humans and where they live
- Plants, animals including humans can change the environment in order to meet their needs
- Things that people do to live comfortably can affect the the local land, air, water and or living things
- There are many solutions to to reduce the effects of humans on the local land, air , water and or living things
- There are different ways to communicate the information
NGSS Standards
Performance Expectation (What students should be able to do by the end of kindergarten)
Use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive. [Clarification Statement: Examples of patterns could include that animals need to take in food but plants do not; the different kinds of food needed by different types of animals; the requirement of plants to have light; and, that all living things need water.]
Performance Expectation (What students should be able to do by the end of kindergarten)
Use a model to represent the relationship between the needs of different plants and animals (including humans) and the places they live. [Clarification Statement: Examples of relationships could include that deer eat buds and leaves, therefore, they usually live in forested areas; and, grasses need sunlight so they often grow in meadows. Plants, animals, and their surroundings make up a system.]
Performance Expectation (What students should be able to do by the end of kindergarten)
Construct an argument supported by evidence for how plants and animals (including humans) can change the environment to meet their needs. [Clarification Statement: Examples of plants and animals changing their environment could include a squirrel digs in the ground to hide its food and tree roots can break concrete.]
Performance Expectation (What students should be able to do by the end of kindergarten)
Communicate solutions that will reduce the impact of humans on the land, water, air, and/or other living things in the local environment.* [Clarification Statement: Examples of human impact on the land could include cutting trees to produce paper and using resources to produce bottles. Examples of solutions could include reusing paper and recycling cans and bottles.]
The KWEE will include…
Part 1 Issue Definition: Outdoor field experience to Ward Museum to explore the needs of plants and animals and to identify human impacts
Part 2 Science & ELA connection: Creek Critters Read-Aloud to engage students in scientific practices
Part 3 Investigation and Action Plan: Schoolyard survey to gather and analyze data to promote/communicate student action.
Part 1: Outdoor Field Experience at Ward Museum
Station 1: Land exploration hike focusing on
- Plants and animals that live on land
- Different animals eat different things
- Plants don’t eat food but they need water and sunlight
- Needs of plants and animals that live on land
- Needs of humans
- Relationship between plants, animals humans and where they live
- Plants, animals and humans have changed they land to meet their needs
- Changes to area around Ward Museum before and after dam construction
Station 2 : Water exploration
- Plants and animals that live in the water
- Different animals in the water eat different things
- Plants don’t eat food but they need water and sunlight
- Needs of plants and animals that live in the water
- Relationship between plants,animals, humans and water
- Changes to water seasonally that can affect plants and animals in the water (algae bloom vs clear water)
Station 3: Enviroscape
- Humans change the environment to live comfortably
- Human activities can have impacts on the local land, water, air and or living things
- There are solutions that can reduce human impacts
Part 2: Creek Critters Read Aloud
Part 3: Schoolyard Survey & Student Action
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1AUt1f1AKRJ2O0SsAuB_p4HM-gPLcCEu8Yqqy__64rSM/edit?usp=sharing
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