Range Day Article by Kelly O'Connell

2015 Jackson County Youth Range Day

By Kelly J. O’Connell, District Conservationist, NRCS, Jackson County

The 14^th Annual Youth Range Day hosted by the Jackson County Conservation District, was held October 7, 2015, at the Gene, Monica & Trevor Williams ranch near the Badlands National Park.

Seventy-three 7^th grade students (Kadoka Area 31, Philip 28 & Wall 16), attended the Range Day.   Nineteen adults assisted with the educational event. The students were bused to a unique area near the Badlands National Park, where they were divided into 4 groups and rotated through 4 – 45 minute Educational stations (Range, Soils, Wildlife, Paleontology/Geology and Area History), to gain a better understanding and appreciation of this area’s most precious resource…rangeland.  

Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Soil Scientist, Katrina Wilke provided instruction at the “Soils” station where students participated in a texture soil exercise, among other things.

Mitch Faulkner, NRCS Range Specialist, Belle Fourche & Rick Peterson, NRCS Range Specialist, Rapid City, provided instruction at the “Range” station where students learned about differences and identification of grasses, forbs and shrubs, including field plant identification exercise.                                                            

Sara Nevison, SDSU Grad Student and Dakota McCoy, Project Assistant in cooperation with the Badlands National Park, provided instruction at the “Wildlife” station, with student interaction on area wildlife, utilizing various animal skulls, pelts, antlers and casted tracks.

Edward Welsch, Badlands Nat’l Park Education Technician at the “Geology and Paleontology” station, provided unique history of the area, and group interaction during his presentation & fossil exhibits and displays.

A noon lunch was sponsored by West River Water Development District and home grown water melon was provided by Wendel Buxcell.

Educational Instructor Group Picture (below L to R)  Mayola Horst - Jackson County District Mgr.,  Edward Welsch – Badlands Nat’l Park, Rick Peterson – Rapid City NRCS, Mitch Faulkner – NRCS Belle Fourche, Katrina Wilke – Rapid City NRCS, Veryl Prokop, West River Development Board member, Sara Nevison SDSU Grad Student In cooperation with Badlands Nat’l Park & Project Assistant, Dakota McCoy, & land owner, Trevor Williams.

More Gummy Bear Fun

A student wondered if you put a light colored gummy bear into a food coloring/water solution if the gummy bear would change colors. I thought GREAT IDEA!!! So we decided to try it!

This a before and after of the first gummy bear. We placed it into a blue food coloring and water solution. After 45 minutes we checked the results. Using a sharp knife, the soaked gummy bear was cut open and the class was surprised to see that the food coloring solution had diffused throughout the entire piece of candy that quickly. We had assumed that osmosis would happen at a slower rate.

Once we saw how quickly the color had diffused throughout the first gummy bear, we decided to soak a second one for a shorter time and see what happened. These are the results! Sorry they are a little blurry but you can still see the color change. This was after 8 minutes in the food dye/water solution.  

  

 The students then requested that the gummy bears both be placed back in the solution to soak over the three day weekend. There are many questions waiting to be answered. Would the gummy bears disappear completely?  Would the color of them change even more? Will the gummy bear grow as much as the ones that were submerged in plain water?  Only time will tell!  :) 

Big Squishy Osmosis Bears

Our osmosis bear experiment had a fun outcome! The bears GREW! And they grew A LOT!

 The students came back to class after the bears had a 24 hour soak and dove into the water to retrieve their gushy squishy friend.

Most bears had a 100% increase in height and width. Some were smaller, some were larger, but the results were pretty consistent.  Some brave kiddos decided that since the gummy bear had served its purpose, it was time for it to change from a science experiment back to a snack.  They said it had lost a lot of flavor after its soak. 

Gummy Bear Osmosis

7th graders are learning about osmosis by making gummy bears take a bath... a 24 hour bath! Today in science class, the 7th grade students were busy measuring gummy bears before they sent them swimming in a cup of water.

After taking initial measurements...

 and immersing their bear in water...

 they will use their power of patience until tomorrow's class.

 Tomorrow, we will be visiting our soggy friends and see if osmosis took place. The 7th grade has predicted that through diffusion and osmosis, the cute little gummy bears will become larger squishy wet blobs that have absorbed water like a sponge.  We know they will grow! The real question is... HOW MUCH!  We will have to wait until tomorrow and see.

 OSMOSIS! a Rap Lecture by Glenn Wolkenfeld   

A fun song and video that helped us learn about osmosis. Click on the title to watch it for yourself!

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

Junior High Reading finished the book Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry and is now reading The Witch of Blackbird Pond. This story deals with a young girl, Kit, who has been orphaned by her parents and grandparents. When her beloved Grandfather died, she was forced to sell his plantation to pay outstanding debts, sold her personal slave to pay for passage from Barbados to Wethersfield, Massachusetts and lived there with her Puritan Aunt and Uncle.  During her stay in Wethersfield,, Kit befriends a lonely Quaker woman named Hannah Tupper who has been labeled as a witch by the local Puritans.  Kit also has been suspected of being a witch because, unlike other women of the time, she knew how to swim.

In order to learn more about the Salem Witch Trials, the class did a miniature web quest by answering questions about the site http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schooladventures/salemwitchtrials/

Did you know that Puritans did not believe in reading plays, celebrating Christmas, or speaking to Quakers?

Iodine is a Sneaky Thing

7th grade learned that it is not a good idea to store iodine in a plastic baggie. In their experiment yesterday to better understand what diffusion is, to prove that diffusion is a real thing and that it is happening all around us, 7th grade observed iodine enter into a closed plastic bag.  Click  below to visit the website that describes the procedure for the experiment we did as a class. The photos are not from our experiment, but ours turned out exactly the same.
Click here to see the experiment.

The Diffusion Experiment  

Argumentative Essays in 7th and 8th grade

7th and 8th grade have been working on learning how to write an Argumentative Essay. We will be writing our own essays within the next couple of days.  7th graders are arguing whether or not an individual has the right to be rescued if they place themselves into a dangerous situation because they want the thrill of adventure. 8th graders are arguing whether or not an individual should be charged with a crime for specific messages they post on social media if their thoughts are meant to cause hard, either physically or emotionally. Both classes are learning that there is a specific template they are to follow when writing an argumentative essay.

We have had some emotionally charged and interesting discussions over these topics and the others that we have read about. Those include should land in outer space be sold to private citizens, should students be required to learn a second language besides English in school, should the United States recognize the federal holiday of Columbus Day or should we be changing it to indigenous people day, and should there be a mandatory age required by states before a student can drop out of high school.