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Protecting our Watershed

By the 2nd Grade Generous Jaguars and Rockin’ Redwoods, with an intro from Teacher Elizabeth

As part of our multidisciplinary unit of study on water and the impact we have on our waterways, we took an in-depth look at our local watershed, our oceans, and what we can do to protect them. We invited the West Valley Clean Water Program to school to discuss our local watershed. We also took a trip to the Marine Science Institute, where we scooped plankton out of the bay and looked at it through a microscope, and to the Guadalupe River Conservancy, where we learned about the life cycle of fish and furthered our understanding of our local watershed. Lastly, May 20th was National River Cleanup Day. We used iPads to design posters for this event in conjunction with the Montalvo Art Program. The Cleanup Day is an annual nationwide effort to cleanup local lakes, rivers and creeks. A group of second grade families met out at Los Gatos Creek and spent the morning removing trash from the trail, creek and perk ponds. Thank you to all who joined us. It was a great way to teach about the importance volunteering in your community and to keep our parks and local watershed clean.

View below a sampling of our River Cleanup posters and student articles.

All Types of Plankton

By Brooklyn D.

Phytoplankton is food to zooplankton AND it creates oxygen.

There are three types of plankton, one of the Plankton is zooplankton. Plankton is an animal that floats around in the ocean, it is basically a thing that floats around. Jellyfish is the biggest plankton and zooplankton in the world. Phytoplankton is a plant, I know it sounds weird that a plant is plankton but it is true. As you can see I have different types of Plankton here, one is called phytoplankton the other is called zooplankton. Zooplankton eats phytoplankton and phytoplankton gets his energy from the Sun. Jellyfish are the biggest plankton in the world that’s what I heard because jellyfish float around like plankton, so yeah you might not think it’s true but it is.

About the Author:
Hello my name is Brooklyn, I love the color pink and I like purple. Blue’s my most favorite color, I just put pink up there for No reason at all. I love dogs, they’re my favorite animal. I want to be a scientist when I grow up or someone who goes out in nature and discovers things.

5 things to thank plankton for

By Aya K.

Air. Plankton makes more air than the trees that you breathe from. Phytoplankton is a plant so it makes air.
Gas. Plankton gives us gas for our cars and for us to use. Ancient plankton died. After many centuries it formed oil. Gas is made from oil.
Yourself. Plankton is one of the things that makes up you. Well, okay it’s kind of weird, but it’s true. All living things evolved from plankton.
Plankton is kind of what keeps the ocean going. Plankton is the bottom of the food chain. All living things depend on plankton for food.
There are three types of Plankton: zooplankton, symbiotic and phytoplankton. Phyto is a plant, zooplankton is animals, and symbiotic is a mixture of both. Meroplankton is a kind of plankton. It is plankton for only a little while and then it grows up.