IntroductionAs Mrs. Sonderman's letter indicates, the Franklin County Historical Society is looking for student investigators to research our areacomparing the way it is now with what Lewis and Clark found. Three elementary schools are participating: Amistad, Canyon View and Southgate. Our task is to collect data on plants and animals in our area.
Getting Started
How are we going to meet the challenge Mrs. Sonderman has given us? We will develop an action plan working in research groups to make two field trips to Zintel Canyon. We will collect plant samples, and we will look for clues of animals that live in or visit the canyon. You can choose to be a plant or an animal expert. We will be able to share our data on the Internet.
To prepare our action plan, we need to answer the following questions. We will share our plan with the Historical Society.
- What do we already know? What plants and animals do we think we will find in Zintel Canyon?
- What can we learn about the plants, birds and mammals in our local shrub steppe habitat? Where should we look for information?
- What resources and URLs (Websites) will help us identify the plants and animals we find? Be sure to check out the resource links at the top of the page.
- How are we going to keep our plant samples organized? Check out this suggestion.
- What clues will help us identify animals and birds?
- How will we record our observations? Check out these data collection sheets.
- What will we need to take on our canyon field trips?
- What can we learn from the work of the students at Amistad? Contact students at Amistad by e-mail. Which animals and plants did Lewis and Clark see?
- What can we learn from the work of the students at Canyon View? Contact students at Canyon View. Did they find the same plants and animals that we found?
Presentation
How can we share the information we gathered from Zintel Canyon? How will people at the museum and other schools learn about our results? We can add our information to a Lewis and Clark Website. Fifth grade students at Amistad and Canyonview have templates for our Website. They may not have added their data yet, but you can check out the pages. Can you find the pages we will use for our plants and animals? You can make a page for each one. Be creative! We will help you implement your ideas online.