Allen Elementary School

Allen Elementary School, Strongsville, Ohio

Group One

We are a class of fourth graders from Allen Elementary School in Strongsville, Ohio. Strongsville is a suburb of Cleveland about ten miles south of Lake Erie, one of the five Great Lakes. Our climate zone has four seasons and temperate weather. Our school is in the middle of a neighborhood with lots of homes. The building is in the middle of a grassy field, and is surrounded by a narrow band of deciduous forest. We set up our squares in the woods.

What we found in our square was some ants, dead pine needles, dead leaves, soil, and pebbles. We had plants such as clover and grass. We also found some pollution like string and beads.

Our partner group is Ms. Jorgenson’s 3^rd grade class from Henry Harris School in Bayonne, New Jersey. It sounds as though they live in a community like ours. In their square they had animals like bees, earthworms, and a lot of ants. Unfortunately, they found some trash such as water bottles. They also had soil and rocks. They had mushrooms and weeds such as dandelions.

The things that were the same in our squares were mostly things like ants and earthworms. Another common thing was plants. They had trees and grass like we did.

Things that were different were that they had big rocks and we had small pebbles. We didn’t have any weeds, worms, fungi, or plastic. Some of their waste was the same and some was different. Our square was more polluted.

New Jersey probably has a different environment. They live on a peninsula and we don’t, so maybe there are different things there. Or maybe they were able to go into a bigger forest with more creatures.

This was an interesting project because you got to see what your environment was like and then you got to compare it to a different place in the world and see what was the same and different.

Group Two

Our partner class was Ms. Moffatt’s second and third grade class at Gleneagle State School in Queensland, Australia. We thought that Australia sounded interesting. They live in a semi-rural area about one hour from the Gold Coast. They are about one hour away from Brisbane, the capital of Queensland. Many of them live on farms. Their area has a smaller population than ours. They are just starting summer there, and they’re in school! We don’t go to school in the summer. They never get any snow, because they’re in the southern hemisphere.

We had a spider, lots of pine needles, and a skinny beech tree right in the center of our square. We had flying bugs, sow bugs (aka potato bugs), ants, beetles, and grass.

The only living thing in common was ants. But like us they did find some garbage lying around. We found a smooshed pop can. They found paper and plastic. Both had trees, dirt (soil), and grass.

Queensland has animals that Strongsville doesn’t. They had beetles, a bearded dragon lizard (!!), and snakes. They also had Australian gum and eucalyptus trees. They had Australian plants such as bottlebrush. What we had they didn’t was a daddy long legs, part of an old telephone pole, glass, an egg sac, an anthill, crabapples, and some duct tape.

We think it was different because they are getting ready for spring and we are getting ready for winter. They also live in a rural area. They also had a recent drought so they haven’t had water in some time. The weather and the environment probably affect some things like animals. They have hotter weather, so animals like lizards and snakes are probably more common. The warm weather lasts almost all year, so the climate is very different. They live by an ocean, a desert, and the equator. We live by a fresh water lake. We also have winters.

We liked comparing our class’s squares to other people’s squares of life. It was fun to compare our environment with other people’s around the world. We got to learn about our environment as well as others.