On their first day as the B.E.T. the students arrived at their office ready to work! They ceremoniously entered the office one by one through the doors they had designed. The door on the right was designed by Renee's class. Notice the carefully drawn keyhole. The door on the left was designed by Georga's class. Notice the bear claw door knob, designed by Sebastian. He also made a similar claw which he placed above the door to "keep us safe". Lino thought that the office's address should be #10, so he was sure to add a #10 above the door.
The first step was to decide which departments should occupy the office. Renee's class decided on: a library full of bear books, a museum ("like the natural history museum where all the dinosaur bones are") full of bear bones and artifacts, a hospital to take care of sick and injured bears, and a phone center. Georga's class decided on: an equipment room (Oliver suggested making a telescope powerful enough to see into the woods behind the office in order to observe the bears), a phone center (complete with phones, computers with which to look up information on the internet and a copier), and an observation room, where the Bear Experts would leave food that would attract bears. The experts would then observe the bears' behavior through the window.
The students spent two busy days in the office. Students got to work building the hospital in the block area, looking through bear books and making library cards, and building bear bones out of play-dough while looking at pictures of bear skeletons. Oliver made the telescope and along with Lily began looking through it and then mapping the forest. Ayaana had had the idea to build a bear observation room, so she and Sebastian worked on making bear food out of connecting blocks. They made fish, honey, and berries. According to Ayaana, they laid them out and waited for bears to come. When the bears arrived, the experts observed that their teeth and claws were sharp. They ate "lots of berries and a little of the other foods." The bone team reported that they had dug in the ground to find bones that were 100 years old! They made rib bones, vertebrae, and bear claws out of play-dough.
Perhaps the most exciting room in both offices was the phone room. Phones were ringing off the hook! Georga, Jeanine, Angie, and myself took notes on what kinds of calls the Bear Experts were receiving and what their answers were. One caller thought that bears ate pasta and hotdogs. The experts corrected them! One caller said that a bear had broken out of the Central Park Zoo and was headed east. Another caller said that the bear was now headed west. Li Bing answered a phone call from someone who saw a bear paw print with hair in it---"it was humongous!" Another caller confessed that he had killed a bear by accident thinking it was a deer. Another man was scared because a bear was outside his window. The experts called the Central Park Zoo to take care of the bear. A worried woman called because she had seen a skinny bear. The B.E.T. decided to feed it berries. A very scared grandmother called because a bear was right outside her window! The Experts told her not to worry, but to stay inside. One woman was feeding a bear pizza and the expert who took the call told her not to. "It will get out of control," the expert told her. Many of the phone calls were about bear sightings which the experts recorded by putting star stickers on the map of NY State. By the end of the day, the map was full of star stickers. Apparently there are lots of black bears living among us! The phone room also had to juggle countless requests for photocopies of bear information from schools all over the state.
The students worked very hard at all the different stations. At the end of the second day, I told them about a phone call I had received. Someone thought they heard baby bears crying in the woods. Both classes felt strongly that the next day we should leave the office behind and take our first trip into the forest! To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment