Archive: News

When Therese Arsenault's science class received a letter from the Board of Education (BOE) asking them to study the Lansing Middle School environment and how the capital improvement project might affect it the class set to work to find out.  The BOE asked three questions:

• What is living in the Middle School woods?
• What kind of soil do you find there?
• What habitat should we preserve?

The class spent ten weeks studying the 80' x 150' area of woods and showed up at Monday's BOE meeting to report on their findings.  Students told the BOE what life they found in the woods and how it interacts.  They constructed a food web to show which animals eat which other animals and plants, and traced energy sources starting with the sun.


The class showed the BOE a PowerPoint presentation that described their findings, and brought along the work they had done, including drawings showing plant and animal life and jars containing their soil tests.  The presentation included charts showing soil content, and explanations of how the plants and animals depend on each other for the ecosystem as a whole to survive.

They explained soil tests they had performed, and showed their findings on soil content.  Finally they made their recommendation, which was to leave the woods alone, except that trash and rubble should be cleaned up.  They answered follow up questions the Board posed before they were finished.


For specifics on what they found, see last week's story about the Museum of the Woods day the class held March 23rd.


BOE President Bonita Lindberg called each student forward to receive a certificate of appreciation to the applause of administrators, teachers and parents in attendance.  "My congratulations to not only those people that are here, but also to your classmates" said Lindberg.  Your efforts and the quality of your work and the energy and enthusiasm is absolutely tremendous.  Thank you very much for sharing your talents with us tonight."

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