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On Thursday, January 13th Ms. Allen’s 4th grade class went to Boyd Hill Nature Park. We saw injured animals, learned about saving water, and more. 

In this world, we only have 3% of fresh water. 

We saw elderberries growing on trees. Elderberry keep people from getting sick. There were also firebush berries. They get eaten by birds and excretes it out. Excrete means to poop. Then, the birds moisturize it. 

Some seeds are moved by erosion, including seed pods. A seed pod is something that holds beans you can eat inside of them. 

In Boyd Hill Park, the water comes from the golf course. It is fresh water and starts as rain, then it goes from the park to Lake Maggiore. 

You can see birds in the preserve. Like cardinals, the red cardinals are the males and a gray cardinal is a female.  Then, you can see Bluejays. 

There is a butterfly area. Caterpillars live there and make their chrysalis blend in with the leaves of the trees so that a predator won’t eat them. Caterpillars only eats yellow leaves. 

She collects rainwater. Water runs through the fountain. The fountain runs on sunlight, so if there is not sunlight, the fountain does not work. 

Compost is eaten by worms. It is gross, but cool! They use compost to keep growing the plants at the preserve. 

She talked about pollution in the water. Together, we tested the pH level of the water. If it was higher or lower than 6 or 7, it is bad for the animals. 

There is a Great Horned Owl that has a hurt wing, they don’t know how it happened. The other Great Horned Owl got shot in the wing. 

When a Great American Kestrel looks at the sun, it has black stripes under its eyes to protect it from being blinded. 

We looked at the ground and saw holes in the ground. Then, we learned that larvae lives in there to catch their food. 

There were sticks that look like snakes on the trees, they are called strangler vines. 

The state palm tree of Florida. To identify it, the leaves have to look like a hard taco shell. The saw palmetto is pointy on the side that is how you know what it is. 

Dead trees are called snags. Snags are trees that have been alive for a very long time. Fire vines grow on snags and they have red-orangish flowers coming out of them. 

If you look at the ground and see a pile, the one with the biggest heads are called warriors and the other ones are just helpers. 

We went to the bridge and she talked to us about the grass keeps the water from flooding up also called stopping erosion. The grass was low because people kept walking in and out, so they put up fences that said “do not enter” to stop erosion and let the grass grow. 

She said that a fed alligator is a dead alligator. One day, someone had their dog out and it was eaten by the alligator. The owner of the dog killed the alligator and that is why we should not feed alligators or crocodiles foremost. 

Legacy Mann

Allen

4th Grade