Grade by Grade Program Descriptions
First & Second Grades: Local destinations include local
wild patches such as Miller Grove, Old Mill Park & Boyle Park and
the school garden. Attention is paid to the changes experienced by these
places through the seasons. Free and directed observation, activities,
and games support themes and content in nature stories read after
returning from the outdoor experience. Light discussion and free
drawing based on the stories supports the content of the experience.
Third Grade: Regular hands-on work in the school garden
emphasizing the magical gift of agriculture, the importance of soil,
water, air, nutrients, and sun takes center stage this year. Visits to
local vegetable farms, fruit orchards, beef and dairy ranches, sheep
farms, farmers markets, and aquaculture operations where the children
learn about the lives of the people who steward these operations and
where they can help with planting, harvesting, and other farm chores,
are critical to the children's grasping the connection between humans
and the Earth. The children experience a diversity of operations
ranging in character from the school garden to community gardens to
urban farms and family-owned farms and in character from conventional to
organic and biodynamic. Working with basketry and textile artists,
building small and large scale projects, and visiting construction sites
and working with building materials is also part of the third grade
experience. Native American stories are told to show continuity of
experience.
Fourth Grade: Explorations of local fauna and the ecosystems in
which they play a unique role is at the heart of the fourth grade
students' NEST experiences. Mt. Tamalpais, the Pacific coast, and the
hundreds of trails in between provide the perfect outdoor classroom.
The San Francisco Bay Area is also rich in environmental organizations
and facilities that support zoology studies such as wildlife
rehabilitation centers, zoos, and natural history museums. Local
geography is integral to ecosystem studies with mapping expeditions of
classroom, school, neighborhood, creeks, town, and beyond on the
agenda. Local history is also very much a part of the students
explorations of their place, requiring trips to former Miwok
settlements, the landing places of European explorers, preserved
missions, former Mexican ranchos, dairy ranches and the immigration
station at Angel Island. An ongoing creekside restoration project in
collaboration with local organization Mill Valley Streamkeepers at
Miller Grove near the school is also a component of the fourth grade
students' work.
Fifth Grade: The ecosystem explorations of the prior year extend
into fifth grade as the students focus on producers this year with an
extensive look at plant life. Outings in the extensive natural spaces
surrounding Greenwood allow students to study local plant communities,
and trips to botanical gardens support these studies. Operation of a
native plant nursery on behalf of Mill Valley Streamkeepers; growing
plants in our own school garden for use in the fourth grade and other
creekside restoration projects began in January 2012. Trips to museums
to experience Asian, Egyptian, and Greek historical objects and to
places of commerce to experience the economic connection between the
students' place and that of more distant peoples also make up a portion
of the fifth grade experience.
Sixth Grade: Investigations into acoustics, optics, and
astronomy take place with workshops given at local museums and
planetariums. Homework includes successive night sky drawings. Applied
geometry is found by visiting labyrinths. Geology is studied in the
field, where outcrops tell the story of the formation of coastal
California through subducting plates and the fault movement of today.
We journey to examine pillow lava basalts and radiolarian chert, some
metamorphosed to jasper, and all covered with a layer of sandstone
graywacke, itself sometimes found metamorphosed to greenstone.
Serpentine is found locally and requires examination where it is found
among the hilltops. A continuation of the study of energy flow and
matter cycles takes place in the garden with more specific work with
biodynamic farming methods and in-depth studies of symbiotic
relationships in nature such as mutualistic pollinator partnerships. An
extensive multi-year project to establish a sanctuary for honeybees
began in 2011 entailing a study of bees, hives, beekeeping, bee-friendly
plants and related topics.
Seventh Grade: Our firm understanding of ecosystems allows us to
now begin to explore the impact of humans upon them. Classroom
discussions of the Age of Discovery turns to a modern-day look at
resource use. Prior years' explorations in hands-on farming, ranching,
and building lead to an examination of the effects of large-scale
agriculture, forestry, grazing, fishing, mining, development, and other
land uses. Inorganic chemistry topics are experienced in place, with
controlled burns and experimentation with fire starting materials as
examples of combustion and ocean acidification as an example of changing
pH values. Care for one's self is explored through examination of food
quality and air quality, among other content, and the making of remedies
from locally-found healing plants is a supportive experience. Becoming
familiar with particular scientists and environmental leaders is part of
our work. A community service or action project bringing ecological
thinking or a manifestation of it to campus makes up an important part
of the seventh grade year.
Eighth Grade: A further exploration of ecology occurs this year
with the study of meteorology, which combined with prior studies, leads
to an investigation of climate change, population growth, energy
consumption, pollution and the synergistic effects of all of these on
biodiversity. We acknowledge the Earth as a closed system and look for
applied science solutions in technology, and also in biomimicry and
conservation. Visits to a landfill, sewage treatment plant, organic
farm, fishing operation, solar and wind energy generation site, and
other relevant places support this work. Ample time to continue to
nourish our interconnections with nature is spent in natural places
looking more deeply at the effect of the seasons, in the changes in
pigmentation of fall leaves to the quality of the winter's accrued
rainwater in the creeks. Successive observations about the weather and
cloud forms are recorded. Kitchen chemistry explorations into canning,
pickling, and cheesemaking are appropriate experiences this year. Once
again, a community service or action project which remedies a practice
inconsistent with ecological thinking is a critical part of the eighth
grade year.