I.E.F. School

Green Brook, New Jersey

          We had six classes of second grade participate in the Square of Life project. The students worked in groups of 3-5 to make observations about the animals, plants, and non-living things in their squares. Each class made a list of the things found in their squares. Then, each class compared their own list to one other location. We chose three other states (Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia) and three other countries (Canada, New Zealand, and Japan). Here is what each second grade class found!

Miss Collins’s Class

          Our class found some similarities and some differences in our square of life when we compared them to a class in Arizona. We were similar because we both found ants, worms, beetles, grass, weeds, and dirt. However, we found some living things that they did not like spiders, a slug, a clover, and a small tree and we found some non-living things like glass, gray stones, and a pipe. The class in Arizona found flowers, lots of jumping bugs, some garbage, and stones of many different colors. We thought that it was interesting that their soil was sandy while ours was damp and rich. We think this might be because Arizona is closer to the equator and it is sunnier there than in our schoolyard.

Miss Gee’s Class

We found some of the same things as the girls in Mrs. Paddison’s class. In our squares of life we both found rocks. We saw a little tree just like them. We also found a spider that was small, little ants, leaves, and grass. We also found some different things. We didn’t find seeds, beetles, or plastic. We didn’t find any flying bugs or sand. We found clovers, a grasshopper, sticks, glass and even an earthworm. We had different things in our squares of life because we live so far away!

Miss Guide’s Class

          When we compared and contrasted our square of life in New Jersey with the one in Georgia, this is what we discovered. Some of the animals were the same but some were different. We thought that the climate change could have been the result of this change. Our plant life was similar, but our non-living things were much different. Their soil “dirt” is very different in color and how it feels. Their area was kept clean in a garden while ours were a more public area.

Miss Titcomb’s Class

          Wisconsin found some things that we, in Green Brook, did not. For example, Wisconsin found paper, plastic, a worm, a tree, dandelions, a spider, a bird, a dragonfly, and weeds. We, in Green Brook, found some things that Wisconsin did not. For example, Green Brook found an acorn, a hair clip, bricks, a band-aid, beads, clover, and wood. Wisconsin and Green Brook did find some of the same things. For example, flowers, sticks, woodchips, bugs, rocks, grass, leaves, and dirt.

Mrs. Snyder’s Class

          This is what Green Brook, New Jersey and British Columbia found in their “Squares of Life.” We both found some of the same things. We found ants, grass, small rocks, and weeds. In New Jersey, we found many non-living items. We found a hair-clip, an eraser, a piece of paper and a popsicle stick. We feel that we found these items mainly because our “square” was in a schoolyard. In Canada, they found more living things. They found a snake, bugs, a lizard, frogs, snails, and a woodpecker. They definitely found more interesting things in Canada than we found in New Jersey! We think that they might have had their “square” in a park, by a pond, or in a backyard to see all of these wonderful things. We learned a lot by doing this project. It was interesting to see how our environment is similar and different from other environments in the world.

Mrs. Ohan’s Class

          We compared what our class found in the square to The Sullivans School in Yokosuka, Japan. We found some of the same animals (ants, spiders, and worms) but Japan also found flying bugs and snails. Unlike Japan, we found a centipede in one of the squares. The plants in the squares were similar. We found grass, weeds, dandelions, and plant seeds. Like our class, Japan also found grass, clovers, and weeds.  However they had a mint bush, bamboo, and trees in their squares! Both of us found dirt and small rocks, but the Japanese school found a lot of other nonliving things like a metal grate, concrete, and a statue. There were a lot of similarities and differences between the two very different locations!