BLUE WEEK!

Blue Week at BSS kicked off on Monday, April 24th.  I have been reading a variety of books highlighting the importance water has in our lives and how important it is to take care of this natural resource.  Here are some of the books I've been sharing:

A Cool Drink of Water by Barbara Kerley shows photographs of people all over the world and how they get their drinking water. In Simpson Desert in Australia, it is carried by a caravan of camels. One photo depicts a woman from China filling buckets from a lake, and she uses a wooden yoke to help carry them home. I then assigned each student a page from the book, and they had to look up their place in the atlas and locate it on the world map.  Everyone then shared with the class where in the world the photograph was from. It was a fun way to learn about the world and the many methods and places that people find their drinking water.

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A River Ran Wild by Lynne Cherry tells the history of the Nashua River, from the time the Nashua tribe made the river their home until traders arrived many generations later.  The tribe only killed what they needed for food and clothing, nothing more.  Animals abounded in this area, and the water was so clear that pebbles shone up from the bottom.

Many years later, a single trader came along the river with treasures such as metal knives, kettles, mirrors, and bright cloth.  And then more and more people arrived and settled in the area.  These people took over the Nashua's land and told them not to trespass.  At the start of the new century came the Industrial Revolution, and with the machines and factories came careless disposal of waste.  The Nashua River was slowly being polluted, until the stench was so bad no one could go near it.  The animals who lived in and near the river died, and pulp from the paper factory clogged it up.  

It was not until a tribe member and a friend began to speak out about how they needed to change their ways if they wanted to save the river that the river began to rebound.  A great reminder not only of the importance of protecting our environment, but realizing that it is never too late to make a change for the better.  

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Wednesday, April 26th, was dedicated to oceans, so we read two biographies featuring oceanographers. Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau and Life in the Ocean: The Story of Oceanographer Sylvia Earle described the lives of two individuals who devoted their lives to studying oceans and the creatures who lived there.  Several students have seen Cousteau's show "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau" which aired from 1966-1976.  The book about Cousteau explained how he formed the Cousteau Society and became an ambassador for the ocean, educating people how pollution adversely affects all ocean creatures.

None of the students had heard of Sylvia Earle, who spent her entire life studying life in the water since she was a child. She observed pond life near her home in New Jersey when she was a very young girl, and when she moved to Florida near the Gulf of Mexico, she had an even bigger place to explore. She was a spokesperson for "the vital importance of the ocean to the health of our planet and to our very survival." She embarked on many voyages of exploration, one being an expedition where she was the only woman among 70 men on a research trip in the Indian Ocean.  I feel it is important to share with our students books about successful women, particularly women who have succeeded in the sciences.  

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Why the Sun and the Moon Live in the Sky by Elphinstone Dayrell is a folktale set in Nigeria. It is a porquoi tale, a fictional tale which explains why something is the way it is.  Porquoi means "why" in French, and usually these tales explain something about nature or animals, such as how a tiger got its stripes or why penguins can't fly. This Caldecott Honor book tells the story of how the sun wanted the sea to come visit him and his wife, the moon, at their house but the sea said their house was not big enough.  So the sun built an even bigger house and invited the sea and all its creatures to his house.  But because the sea was so vast and had so many creatures, it filled the house and forced sun and moon out of their house and into the sky. There are so many of these fun tales, and the students enjoy them very much!