Special Investigation
Sustainability - Eastern Shore of Maryland Environmental Studies
by Bob (9)

Environment Studies on Maryland's Eastern Shore By Grade 4 Worcester Preparatory School The fourth grade students at Worcester Prep learned about the environment from the rangers at the Powellville Ranger Station. They met the rangers at the Salisbury Zoo where they studied about buffer zones, birds of prey, snakes, and recycling of paper. Buffers to Help the Chesapeake Bay Yesterday we learned about our environment at the Salisbury Zoo. We learned that trees make buffers from the winds. Buffers are also made of roots, grass, dirt, and leaves. Buffers help keep pollution out the Chesapeake Bay. If pollution gets to our waters, it makes our water dirty and not a lot of people like to swim or drink out of polluted water. If you drop a soda into the ground, eventually it will ends up in the Chesapeake Bay. (Kelly) Did you know that rocks are buffers, too and help the Chesapeake Bay? (Austin) Did you know that when it rains, trees act as buffers to keep pollution out of the bay? (Walker) You should plant trees to be buffers. (Peyton) Buffers are filters. Trees make good buffers. Below trees are roots and bushes. Trees stop pollution from going into the water. If pollution goes into the water, the water is not safe for tanimals or humans. Plant more trees! Here is a way you can plant more buffers and stop pollution. If you live near water and no trees are there, go to your nearest hardware store and buy some seeds. Plant them and let the trees grow. (Christopher. Buffers soak up pollution. If we don't have trees, we don't have buffers. Without buffers, the bay gets dirty. (Jake) We played a game where we were buffers so that we'd learn how to block pollution in the bay. (Hannah) If you go boating or swimming, don't dump trash into the water. Do not pour any unhealthy liquid on the ground. Don't pollute! (Christopher) Paper Making On our field trip yesterday, we learned how paper is made. We saw an example of how to do it. First, you take a strip of a tree and take the bark off. Then you cut it into woodchips. You take the woodchips and put them into boiling water. They will melt into pulp. Then you stir the pulp up. After that, you take a screen and put it under water. You pull the screen up and the pulp will be formed into a rectangle. It will look like wet paper. Then you put heat and pressure on it. We put felt on it and then a hot iron. A while later, we took the iron and felt off. The paper was let to dry for a while. Then we had paper. If you want to recycle paper, you tear it up and put it in water. It will become pulp again and then you can do the same steps as above. (Michelle, Jacqueline, Alyssa, Halie) Birds of Prey Birds of prey are very special in their own way. They are affected by development, littering, loss of forests, and many other problems. Birds of prey are always dealing with what the human race does. They must move from place to place and find a perfect spot to live. They are very important to our environment. (Molly) Did you know that when a turkey vulture flies, its wings are in a V shape? (Elena) A bird of prey is a bird that eats another animal. (Peyton) The eagles' touch has so much pressure that it kills the animal with a single touch with its talons. Talons are sharp claws or feet. Birds of prey usually hunt at night. (David) An owl has one ear at the top left slant of its head and one at the bottom. It can hear in both directions. The beaks on birds of prey are curved so that they can hook their prey. (Will) Turkey vultures make their nests on the ground. (Will) Snakes We learned that red on a snake touching yellow means poisonous, but it it's touching back it's not.