Animal Superhero Project
Our last project of the year was to become Community Superheroes. We had already determined that a hero is someone that saves or helps other people but the class decided to add animals to our definition. We brainstormed many ways to help other people and animals in the community and then wrote persuasive letters to the class, trying to convince others to vote for our idea. Finally, we narrowed down the vote to three ideas, all helping animals. One group of three students wanted to help Monarch Butterflies. A larger group wanted to build homes for local birds. The last group, half the class, wanted to help White Rhinos in Africa. We debated whether this was helping animals in our community or not. We finally determined that earth is a community, so rhinos in Africa are, in fact, part of our community!
The Monarch Butterfly group spent many days studying books about the migration patterns and challenges Monarchs are facing today. They decided to write a letter asking the church next door if they could plant a Monarch waystation in their field. Unfortunately the answer was no due to allergies to milkweed and watering issues. The group decided to plant a few flowers by our playground instead.
The bird group eventually split off to study hummingbirds and Western Scrub Jays. Both groups focused on what the birds eat and how they build their nests. The group spent many days creating houses for their birds, problem solving along the way. The houses were very thoughtful; colorful to attract hummingbirds and filled with birdseed.
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Groups spent the next month researching their animals in order to truly help them. The rhino group decided to raise money to adopt a rhino after finding out that the White Rhinos are endangered because poachers kill them and cut off their horns in order to make medicine. The group made rhino necklaces and sold them on "Cinco de Rhino" day, May 5th. (Trying to explain why this was funny to a group of 6 year olds was a bit challenging!) They raised over $100 to send to the International Rhino Foundation and chose Rosa as our new, adopted rhino.
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