May 13, 2005, Page 15
By ANNIE REID
Westborough Community Land Trust
Nature Notes in the classroom
Nature Notes has come to the classroom.
At Gibbons Middle School, Allison Gergely’s
May 13, 2005, Page 15
By ANNIE REID
Westborough Community Land Trust
Nature Notes in the classroom
Nature Notes has come to the classroom.
At Gibbons Middle School, Allison Gergely’s seventh-grade science students recently used the regular feature in the News as one of their chief sources in their study of local wild plants.
About 100 or 150 years ago, the local plants and animals would have been common knowledge to many residents of Westborough. Not so today. But Mrs. Gergely’s science students are taking the first steps toward becoming the local naturalists of tomorrow.
“I’d like to get their hands back in the dirt,” Gergely said.
She explains that students might come into her class knowing all about South American poison-dart frogs, which they’ve seen on TV nature programs, but they know very little about what lives and grows here.
Emphasizing “place-based learning” and journal-writing, she had her students pair up to create about 60 larger-than-life journal pages in the form of information-packed, hand-drawn posters. Each poster featured a wild plant in Westborough.
In addition to abundant drawings and facts, some posters included tissue-paper models of blossoms. Others had accounts of personal experiences.
Student Maddie Fryer was introduced to pussy willows by her grandfather and fondly remembers their spring tradition of walking together among them.
Tahner Alcock used to ride his bike through lady’s-slippers. He was excited to realize he now had a name for these plants that bloomed and spread each year. He learned to be more careful riding near lady’s-slippers.
Local plants impress
What about our local plants made an impression on the students? Students answered this question in a discussion.
The notion of invasive plants captured their interest:
“Oriental bittersweet was brought over to this country but spread and killed the native plants around 