NEWPORT AQUATIC CENTER

On 2/17/12, my classmates and I went with another block from CSUF to the upper Newport Bay.  After mingling and introducing ourselves with the other blocks, we broke up into teams of two and proceeded to get into life jackets and grab paddles.  Here is a picture of us before going into the water!

While outrigging on the estuary, we were fortunate enough to get placed with a fantastic tour guide who told us many cool facts.  We found out that the estuary is 800 acres and is home to many endangered birds such as the clapper rail.  

Here is a picture a classmate of mine took of the snowy egret that we all got a chance to spot during our trip.

Some friends said they were also able to catch glimpses of jelly fish in the water, and some saw fish as well.  There are more than 75 fish species live in the upper Newport Bay, and more than a whopping  30,000 birds visit in the spring and summer.

Here is a picture of us after the tour! I highly recommend people to visit.  It is a fun way to get out and get some fresh air while learning a thing or two!

OBSERVING PARTS OF FLOWERS

In this activity, students were able to look at the different parts of plants and see how similar and different they are.  The goal of this activity is to practice observing, collecting, communicating, and interpreting and inferring information. 

The materials are as follows:

·      Hand lens

·      Two different flowers

·      Plastic knife

·      Something to place flowers on (i.e. newspaper)

First, the instructor asks students what similarities and differences they notice of the two flowers.  In the example, the two flowers used were the tulip and the rose.

 

Then, the instructor gives background knowledge and goes over parts of a flower while referring to a picture diagram and introduces terms like pistil, stamen, sepals, etc.

Next, the instructor gives instruction to open the flowers or cut them in half and asks students to look for the differences between the two flowers and write on a chart the differences between flowers 1 and 2 and write the observations down on a graphic organizer with categories for number of sepals, color of sepals, number of petals, number of stamen, and finally number of pistils.  In this case for example, there were differences between the tulip and the rose as far as number of petals.  The tulip had six petals, whereas roses vary in number of petals and there are too many too count.

ARBORETUM

On 2/10, my peers and I went to the Fullerton Arboretum where we were able to walk around and view the different community gardens to the Heritage House and all the different collections.  There were Mediterranean, Desert, and even Woodland collections to see throughout the arboretum.

One term we learned about during our stay, was symbiosis. Symbiosis is when to different organisms live together in close association and mutually help each other in some way.  One example of symbiosis we saw right away was a bee taking pollen from flowers (bee might not be visible in picture).

Another term we learned about during our stay is biome.  A biome is a community of organisms that are climatically and geographically defined.  Some examples of biomes include temperate grasslands or the savanna in Australia.   Here is an example of a desert biome that we came across in the arboretum.

Grouping

The above diagram depicts the differences between traditional instructional grouping in classrooms and current trends in instructional grouping.