Personalized Land Acknowlegements and Artwork

Over the course of this year, students have been learning about the Indigenous history of this land we call Alberta. One of the learning tasks the students have taken part in is creating their own personalized statement to proceed the CBE's standard land acknowledgement. This exercise has been encouraged by many experts in the hopes of people internalizing the importance of the land acknowledgement and not just reciting it mindlessly. 

To read more about our personalized writing, click here to see a previous blog post. 

Now that students have finished their paragraphs, they are taking turns reading them out loud for the class as a way for us to start each school day. Many students have been excited about this; we are never short of volunteers to read!

To accompany the land acknowledgements, students created a multi-media form of art that we called "Extending the Frame." Students brought in a picture from home of themselves in nature, in a place in Alberta that is special to them (thanks, parents, for your support with this activity!). Students glued the photo on to a canvas then used light pencil sketching to extend the land around them. They made artistic decisions, such as where to put their photo on the canvas to best provide opportunities to extend the land, whether to arrange their canvas in portrait or landscape style, and whether to use watercolours or acrylic paints to best match the original photo. The outcome was outstanding! Just look at these beautiful creations!

These works of art will be on display for the next month both in our classroom and on the bulletin board outside the Gym. If you're in the school, you're encouraged to check them out. 

If you don't see your child's beautiful work below, it is because you have not signed the Consent to Publish work form so I am not allowed to share pictures of their faces or work. You can adjust this by going in to MySchool account and "forms" or contact Ms Tammy in the office for help. Or, it is because your child has not yet finished. :)

Happy Mother's Day!

Wishing all mothers a special day today! 

We worked hard these past two weeks to create these beautiful wreaths for you. Not only are they pretty, but they relate to our work in Science on plants. Students have been studying different petal shapes. We modelled our wreath flowers after real-life flowers. Some students doubled-up their egg cartons to create sepals. We used various materials to create accurate looking stamen and pistils. 

Thank you for all that you do, Moms. 

Tracing our wreaths

Learning how to cut out a middle section

Painting our wreaths and flowers

Garbage Clean-Up

Check out how much garbage we have already and this is before we walked the river!

Last week, we did a Community Walk and Garbage Clean-Up. This related to our work in class around Earth Day and Waste in Our World for Grade 4 Science. Having just visited the landfill the day before, we were extra excited to do something positive for the earth. 

Students were put into three groups with 4 garbage pickers to share. They all had gloves, as well, and a garbage bag to share with their group. After a discussion about safety while picking up garbage (especially along the river pathway), we were off! 

Students were very engaged and cooperative as we made our way along Spiller Road to the river pathway. There was some garbage we left behind because it was potentially unsafe or too heavy for us to carry. The amount we collected was staggering...easily 20 pounds altogether. 

We also took a little break in the shade along the river to discuss the different seeds we saw on the walk and talk about seed dispersal for our Plants unit in Science. We enjoyed seeing the osprey back on its nest.

Thanks so much to our parent volunteers who joined! 

Landfill and Composing Field Trip

Yesterday, we went on a field trip to see the city's Composting Facility and Landfill. There are actually 3 landfills all in the city of Calgary! Here are some things we learned at each site from Larissa:

Composting Trip
- biofibre (waste from showers and sinks) is mixed with wood chips first because it's so wet and heavy

• Food and Yard Waste arrives on the tipping floor
• It is sorted to make sure everything is organic (a giant magnet takes out any pieces of metal, a vacuum blows out the plastic and then people pick out other non-organics). 
• It gets up to 55 degrees to kill off germs that can be harmful to people (in the "vessel"). 
• It is turned every 5 days and oxygen and water are added to help it decompose faster. 
• It stays 3 weeks in the curing shed... so in 60 days it is decomposed (where as it would take a few years in nature)
• There is a biofilter where bacteria "eat" away the odour so it doesn't smell.
• The city gives compost away for free for you to use in your yards! :) Just book an appointment online.
• A solar farm helps the whole process work. There are approximately 11 000 panels; it powers 30% of the facility.

The Composting Steps

Sorting garbage into: Compost, Recyclables, Donation bin, Hazardous Waste, etc.

Landfill Trip 
- leachate - the chemical-filled water that comes out after rain water goes through the garbage: this is harmful to humans so it is caught under the landfill in a layer of plastic that costs $ 3 million!

- black bin (garbage), blue bin (recycling), green bin (compost) 

- methane 25x stronger than carbon dioxide gas relating to climate change so the city burns it

Here's a video we watched to learn more (click here). 

Did you know? 

It takes 95% more energy to make new aluminum and tin than recycling old!

It takes 70% more energy to make new plastic than recycling old!

It takes 40% more energy to make new glass than recycling old!

Did you know? 

You can tell if plastic can be recycled because it: 

• has a triangle symbol on the bottom
• is stretchy

Did you know? 

The City of Calgary now has a bike donation program where you can drop off used and broken bikes to be fixed and donated? It all started when someone noticed bikes being dumped in the landfill.

These are fridges and freezers. They have the date written on them from when they were dropped off.
The freon needs to be pumped out because it can harm the Earth. 

Student Quotes

"It was cool to learn where the garbage went so when you put it in the bin it doesn't just magically go away." ~ Clover

"When we went there, I realized that compost smelled worse than the dump because it has things that should be reused instead." ~ Charlie

"I found it interesting to find out how garbage was sold as soil." ~ M

"I liked the experience of going to the compost and landfill so I get to see. Some people don't get the chance to see." ~ Arsh

"I learned that it's not the food waste that smells bad, it's when it's decomposing." ~ Keagan

"I liked learning about the process of how they decompose the compost. They put it through the vessel and the whole process of turning it into soil." ~ Nolan

"I thought it was cool how we got to see the Trash Master." ~ Olivia

"It was really cool that there were 11 000 solar panels but it only powers 30% of the facility." ~ Aarav

"I didn't ever know that the metal and plastic is taken away from the compost in a really cool way. For example, the metal is taken out by magnet and the plastic is taken out by vacuum because it is light. I found it really interesting to know." ~ Kashvi

"I found it cool to have a big magnet so they could take out the metal." ~ Abbey

"It's really cool to see the warmness that is passing through the concrete wall of the vessel." ~ A

"I thought it was really cool to see how many bikes get thrown out at the landfill." ~ Alice

"You can take the recycling and then make other things." ~ V

Tourism Project Sharing

"Touring" the Rocky Mountain Region

Over the last few months we have learned about each land region in Alberta. There are six: Rocky Mountains, Foothills, Parklands, Grasslands, Boreal Forest, and Canadian Shield. We learned about the land in each region, along with its climate, plants, animals, and natural resources. 

We discussed what Tourism is and ways that cities and regions advertise for people to come visit them. Here are some thoughts we had: 

Last week, we finished up our Tourism Projects on the regions of Alberta. Students had the choice of the region they worked on and the type of project they did (tv commercial (iMovie), radio commercial (podcast announcement), travel brochure, or poster). 

On Friday, we "travelled" around Alberta. Each station was a different region of Alberta and had the different projects for that region. Students completed "passports" for each region by writing down a fact they learned. 

Writing down a fact in
our "passport"

Students will be bringing home their evaluations today. Please take the time to look over my marks and comments. 

Note: Students also took home Science Tests and Division Tests on Friday so I hope you got the chance to look at those, too.

If you have any questions, please reach out.

~ Ms Elder

Reminder: HOMEWORK due Monday: Bring a photo of myself on the land

Reminder: You have homework due Monday. 

Check our previous blog post for more information (click here). 

Ticket to Curlew Novel Study

This week, we started a class read aloud called Ticket to Curlew by Celia Barker Lottridge. It is a story about a boy named Sam who's eleven years old who comes to Curlew, Alberta with his family in 1915. This story describes the European settler experience of arriving on "empty" land and starting to build a homestead. 

This novel study relates to both Language Arts and Social Studies. Students each have their own copy of the book. We practice reading aloud for the class, one paragraph each, paraphrasing in our own words, adding expression to our voices, examining traits of fiction books such as quotation marks, "time passed" symbols, etc. We are also keeping track of Social Studies vocabulary words and their meanings, like "satchel," "compass," and "horizon." After each chapter, we discuss the story, ask questions, make predictions, summarize information, and answer a few short comprehension questions. We will also be discussing connections between the book and our previous learning of the land and history of Alberta.

You can support your child at home by asking them what's happening so far in the story. The ability to summarize and retell is an important quality of a good reader. Prompt them to see if they have any questions or predictions.