ENS and ESY News

Mr. M. has finished his first practicum with the ESY and ENS classes and has gone north to begin his second practicum assignment. We wish him the best of luck with his new subjects and new students. Here is a picuture of Mr. M. leading the students through a class about the geophysical factors of standing water ecosytems.

ENS and ESY Classes

In the next weeks the classes will be learning about nature journaling to aid their skills of observation and reflection. Here is an example from a biology nature journal.

ESY 12 at the Pond

The ESY 12 students have completed the data collection parts of their individual labs. The topics of investigation include: measuring primary productivity of the pond, investigating the trophlytic and trophogenic zones of the ecosystem, and estimating the population of a consumer population using removal sampling methods.

ESY Field Trip Turtle Tale

Our ESY 12 field trip to Halfway River, was a great outdoor experience. I never thought that 'running' around and searching for animals could be so much fun! Especially when you find a baby snapping turtle. It was amazing how small the turtle was and yet it was out on its own defending for itself; I never knew turtles had such long tails! He did become tense as we continued to handle him, but this was probably due to the fact that he had never seen a human before and thought we were going to eat him. - a student

ESY Trip Field Work

I felt the fieldtrip to the pond gave the class a “hands-on” experience to real nature. We’ve been learning a huge amount of information on ponds, rivers, biotic and the abiotic factors for these ecosystems. However, being able to experience all of this at a real stream and getting to test real factors is very different. The scenery around the pond was beautiful and very fresh with the colours of autumn. The trip made me feel like I was a professional investigator working on a serious case. The “hands-on” work made me realize how interested I am in this field of work. - a student.

ESY Eco-Jeopardy

Today the ESY classes played a Jeopardy style game as part of a review for Thursday's test.

Scores
0 SR, HM, MM, WR, LD 1
0 KF, RG, JC, MS 3
1700 CF, RL, AS, LN 2

Scores
2050 JC, JM, CN, MT, MR, OM
800 RP, WE, RZ, JF, KM
0 GL, SC, JF, SW, KM

ESY Field Trip and the Spider

This water spider was one of my favourite finds during our trip to the Halfway River. I chose this picture to write about because when I had first found this spider it was on a little island surrounded by water. This amazed me because it looked liked a normal spider, and we all know that spiders hate water, but soon I realized that some of its legs were resting on the water while the others were holding onto the rock.

I was also surprised at how fast the spider could move on top of the water. The legs of a water spider create so much surface tension that they barely touch the water. But because the spider weighs something, its legs make an “indent” in the water where their legs contact the water. To move, the spider puts force on the indents of water under their legs. The indent creates a drag or resistance on the water, which allows the spider to push away from the water and push it behind. This allows the spider to move forwards very fast.

If you look at the picture of the spider on top of the water, then you can see the indents underneath each one of its eight legs, and you can also see that its body is resting on the water because of the “shadow” figure underneath it. (Click on picture for larger image.)

I thought a spider like this might be darker so it would be able blend in more easily with the water’s bottom. But instead it blends in with leaves and sticks which may indicate that it spends most of its time on the land and only goes to the water for food, or to escape from land predators. - a student

ESY Field Trip Highlight

I really enjoyed the entire trip. After sitting in class, and learning how to test these different factors, it was a treat to actually go out and test them ourselves. My favourite jobs were measuring the cross-section of the river and collecting the biotic factors in the kick-net. This involved getting right in the river, overturning rocks in the freezing cold water and walking across the length of the stream with water in your boots.

There was a large water spider in the stream, which could skitter across the surface quite quickly. It gave me quite a fright when it swam directly towards me. When it hovered on the water, it held its legs out in perfect symmetry, and when the ripples around it became still, it looked like a “snowflake” on the water.

The stream and surrounding area was beautiful this time of year, with all the leaves changing colours and falling softly to the ground. What an awesome trip to remember!! - a student

ESY 12 at the Halfway River

The ESY 12 class spent the day on the Halfway River investigating the environmental gradient and possible human impacts upon the ecosystem.

Look at the newer posts to see the posts written and the pictures taken by the students in the boots above about their most memorable moments in the river that day.

ESY and ENS at the Ponds

The ESY and ENS classes have been visiting the local aquatic ecosystems to sample the biotic and the physical factors as part of their field work

a207 and the summer

The classes have ended, the exams are finished, and the textbooks have been returned.

And room A207 waits for the new students to arrive and old students to return.

"View of Nature" Posters

Follow this link to Flickr see a selection of the posters that were created by ESY students. And here is a video named ESY Views of Nature (the transitions are a little too quick in the video) that uses some of the posters and some pictures from our trips to the KES woodlot and pond.

Views of Nature

Students in ESY 11 and 12 used the material that they had collected and created in their sketchbooks as the starting point for their posters depicting views of nature. In the case of the ESY 11 students, they were each asked to produce a poster that depicted both scientific and other views of nature. The ESY 12s were asked to depict various views of nature. Photos of several of the posters will be posted.

What is the future of the Florida Panther?

The ENS and ESY classes are investigating the current situation of the Florida Panther and the students will be making predictions for this species based upon their research. This is an on-line ill-structured question based upon the information found on the Everglades Site found in the Exploring the Environment website.

The pictures are from one of the ESY classes which is working in groups to complete the task and the ENS students are working indpendently to complete the same task.

The IB ESY 12 exam has been written!

The students of ESY 12 breathed a collective sigh of releif as they finished two years of study with their final paper of the exam.

Now they will be practising their slide shows for the ESY 11 classes, and engaging in fieldwork as they make their posters depicting "various views of nature".

Seed Germination and Acid Precipitation

This week both ESY 11 classes investigated the effects of acid precipitation upon the germination of a variety of food seeds, such as; corn, wheat, and beans. Here are pictures of seed counting, sorted seeds, and data collection.

ESY 12 Insolation and Differential Heating of Water and Ground

In the first photo one can see the experiment set-up for the first experiment which tested the differential heating and cooling rates of water and soil. The second experiment simulated the variation in heating due to the different angles of incidence for the sun's rays hitting the earth and so the thermometers were positioned at angles of 90, 60, and 30 degrees to replicate the conditions found at lower, middle, and higher latitudes.

ESY 11 Outdoors

The students of the ESY 11 classes have been outside documenting the arrival of spring using the sensors and their senses. This a picture of ESY 11 A at site A and a picture of one of the students taking time to record her personal observations.

ESY and the Atmosphere

In ESY 12 the students are concluding their investigation of the earth's atmosphere with an examination of the global carbon dioxide record as well as an investigation of the world's greenhouse and ozone depleting gasses. They are examining data from a variety of sources including: Mauna Loa, Barrow, and the South Pole. Part of there investigation includes viewing the NPP animation for the globe.

Trip to the Woodlot

Today the C block ENS class travelled to the school woodlot and conducted the first set of observations for what will be a term-long set of observations. There was little variation in terms of temperature and light intensity between the four sites as the leaves are not yet out and there was no wind. We did see deer tracks in the snow as well as dog or coyote tracks.

Identifying Conifers

Yesterday, the G block ENS class went outside to practise the use of identification keys for coniferous trees. While using the keys several students discovered that they could distinguish between several of the tree species based upon smell as well as by appearance.

ESY Predator Prey Simulations

Each class is examining predator-prey interactions using a variety of simulation methods. We first used coloured beads to model a habitat with mice and foxes. In the second simulation we used an on-line simulation available from arcytech that models a habitat with oaks, squirrels, and hawks. In the arcytech simulation one can control a variety of variables ranging from nutrients for trees to hawk reproductive rates.

ENS Update

In the past two weeks we have mapped microenvironments on the KES campus, investigated the effects of precipiation upon crane populations, and chronicled the ANWR debate in the United States. We are now beginning an experiment that will test geotrophic and phototrophic responses in plants.

Atmosphere Presentations and Peer Teaching

The students of the class prepared and presented the material for Topics 3.2 to 3.5, the Atmosphere and Human Impact. Presentations can be found at kesib.com's ESY pages.

Productivity Experiments

The students of the ESY 12 class recently completed their light/dark bottle lab work for measuring the primary productivity of a eutrophic ecosystem.

Why are the trout dying?

This week the various teams in each ESY 11 class presented Mr. Taylor with reports detailing the causes of trout deaths and presenting solutions for the problems. Their reports may be seen by following this link to the KES ESY website.