School and Group Programs
Life Science: Sample Day
We offer K-12 programs, including your choice of evening activities. This outline represents common activities. Students' actual days may include different activities.
Theme of the Day
Whenever we try to pick out any one thing by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. - John Muir.
Objectives
By the end of the day, students should be able to: understand, describe, identify and recognize:
- Identify important elements of a successful team
- Name key ingredients needed for photosynthesis
- Recognize the sun as our primary source of energy
- Accurately measure a sequoia tree's diameter, circumference and height as part of a National Park Service study
- Recognize the value of long term observation in the scientific process
- Make comparisons between different species lifespans
- Identify interconnected parts within the forest ecosystem
- Trace elements of a personal possession back to their natural origins
Assessment Strategies
The theme is introduced first thing in the morning. Student understanding of the theme and specific concepts is assessed throughout the day. Each activity requires student participation and articulation of key ideas. Late afternoon, the group elaborates on a specific example of interconnectedness. Instructors use this conversation to gauge each student's level of understanding.
Teaching Day Itinerary
Morning activities:
- Tyrolian - ski group challenge:
Two large skis are attached to hand-held rope. Students stand on the skies with each pair of feet near a pair of ropes. The group must work together to lift the skis as they attempt to take forward steps. - Race for the sun:
Students participate in a game illustrating the sun as the major source of energy for life on earth and the process of photosynthesis in vascular plants.
Afternoon activities:
- Sequoia monitoring
Students research, measure, and record data on sequoias in the Tuolumne Grove. Height and diameter of tress are calculated by showing relationships and using mathematical formulas. - Tree of time
Students take turns reading The Tree of Time by Kathy Baron and reflect on the history that sequoias have lived through during the past 3,000 years. - Journal time
Students create illustrative and descriptive timelines of their lives and compare them with the years represented in a sequoia stump's ring. - Closing activities
Each student picks out an everyday object and traces it to its origins, highlighting the interconnected web in which we live.
