Margo Elementary School, Weslaco, Texas

We are a group of 8 fourth grade gifted and talented students from Margo Elementary School in Weslaco, Texas.  Right now we are in the middle of a severe drought.  We did have about a fourth of an inch of rain over the weekend, but we are over 5 inches short of rain as of May 1.  It was difficult to pound the stakes into the ground on our playground because of the drought.    In one of our squares we had a large harvester ant nest that had been sprayed with chemicals last year to kill the ants, but they never died.  The area around the nest had no grass because the ants ate the grass.  What little grass that surrounded that area was either dead or dying due to the lack or rain.  The second and third squares had  a  yellow lady bug, white butterfly, dead carpet grass and green carpet grass, ox-eyed daisies, pink evening primrose, berlandier bladderpod, frog fruit, sensitive briar, alluvial soil, aluminum foil, candy and chip wrappers, cascarone shells and confetti.

 

One group chose Schlegel Road Elementary in Webster, New York.  They had black ants, black beetles, flying bugs, spiders, worms, bush, grass, evergreens, weeds, rocks dirt, metal cans, mud and plastic.  They probably had some different insects based on the fact that they are in a different area of the country than we are and are wetter than we are.  We learned that students and people everywhere seem to just drop trash wherever they are rather than to put it into a trash can.  We also concluded that different areas have different types of insects, plants and other materials that are suited for their area of the world.

 

The second group chose Andrei Muresanu Secondary School in Transylvania, Romania.  We think they must get tired of hearing the question, "Do Dracula's relatives live near you or your school?"  We know we wouldn't like to hear that question.  Their square had ants, beetles, flying bugs, snails and worms, bushes, grass, trees and weeds, dirt, metal, paper, plastic and small rocks.  The similarities were ants, beetles, flying bugs, grass, weeds, dirt, metal, paper and plastic.  The probably have snails because it is wetter than we are or they have damp leafy areas for them to live and hide.    We also decided that people everywhere litter.    We all need to work better to get out the message not to litter because that causes pollution which destroys our earth.

 

The last group chose Ms. Reid's class at Upwey South Primary Elementary School in Australia.  When they compared the schools they saw that her class had discovered ants, beetles, flying bugs, spiders, millipedes, mosquitoes, bees, bushes, grass, wildflowers, mushrooms, dead trees, a big rock, dirt, plastic, metal, mud, paper and small rocks.  They concluded that it was wetter there since they had mud and cooler with the mushrooms.  They also decided that there is littering everywhere and that they need to come up with a plan to stop littering.