Swimmin' with the fishes

Last week, the high school counselor extended an long-awaited invitation to chaperone a field trip! This particular perk has been few and far between this year and although it makes for an incredibly long day, it breaks up the monotony and provides a nice distraction.

I was especially excited about this one because I missed out last year: The Seattle Aquarium!

With four chaperones, the original plan was to split into groups of about 6 and have our particular kiddos to keep track for an hour of roaming. However, with so much to see, I didn't want the kids to have to be tied to one another's pace and once they were set free, our groups quickly became globs of whoever we happened to keep up with. I was able to keep one girl from my group and a tag-along from another.

I thoroughly enjoyed our trio; Taylor was a very bright, engaged girl with a passion for animals, environmentalism and what seemed to already be quite a variable life under her belt. Origianlly from Olympia, she'd attended boarding school in Tennessee, hiked part of the Apalachean trail and worked summers with the Youth Conservation Corps. She was keeping her eye out for sharks the whole time but equally enjoyed the birds, seals and the playful otters that tumbled in circles chasing their own tails. I also got a kick out of her very keen streamline of questions she asked as we observed an male starfish unabashedly performing a lengthy session of out-of-season spawning.

I enjoyed it all but was especially fascinated by the bright colors, obscure appendages and unfathomable accommodations that the more minute classes of coral, urchins and what-have-yous make. In the class portion of the trip after lunch, our "teacher" was explaining a few such adjustments that the starfish have evolved to survive the harsh conditions of living in the ebb and flow of inner tides, mainly the second stomach that they completely invert to store food and maintain flat bodies that allow them to wait out  low tides and safely cling from being thrown back out into treacherous open ocean. I thought about my understanding of "perfection" of human body function and realized that many species of animals have to adapt special quirks to get by; my body isn't the only weird one out there.

The bulk of the class portion consisted of an activity where the kids got to go around to tables of open containers and classify different animals based on observed characteristics, ending up with three distinct categories. Taylor the most on target and engaged in the group and I was continuously impressed with how undeterred she was by second-guessing a hypothesis and challenging her understanding; a growth mind-set in the works is rare form out here.

A model of the project

The class ended with a way-cool explanation for all of the infuriating construction along the waterfront that has caused logistical frustrations on more than one Seattle visit: apparently, this project is an entire re-building of the Seawall that is currently in place to hold back Eliot Bay from inner Seattle. About a hundred years ago, the bay spilled inland and created rich habitats of shallow water for salmon and other animals to thrive. However, it also created the necessity for a complex detour via train to get anything out to port to be exported. And so, up with the wall! A hundred years later, the wooden structure is now degrading and the natural habitat is in great imbalance. A once-healthy salmon population for example, now struggles as young salmon get lost in the dark underneath port docks and the sea bed has been all but starved of the natural food and nutrients.

The current project, projected to be finished in 2017 (although they are already behind) is taking a super innovative, conscientious approach to restoring this ecosystem. Firstly, the Sea wall will be pushed back about 15 feet so that the actual border of the land will be lined instead with an extensively researched surface of various textures and extensions that allow tide animals to cling and thrive during the natural tidal cycles. To solve the navigational dilemma and bring back growth to the sea floor, the pedestrian walkways will be replaced with sidewalk built of light-reflecting glass material, allowing sunlight to reach the bottom of the water. By the end of the class, my tolerance of our navigational inconveniences was certainly increased.

The long day out of town was graciously met with a surprisingly calm yet enjoyable Open Gym. I had gotten together my first project for our after-snack selection and most of the kids got pretty revved up when I introduced "The Making of SLIME!" We took about 20 minutes after our meeting for each to concoct their own take-home portion of the strange polymer, which they got to dye different colors. Afterwards, we still had time for the voted upon game, four corners. It had been a popular choice lately and I hadn't been feeling well enough to really engage in the sports activities. I was finally ready to commit to participating and it felt really refreshing. Like most of their favorites, the game involves a lot of running and dodging balls and since I'm out of practice, I'm sort of a wuss about having things thrown at me but I'm wincing through it ; )

School this week was a little more than the norm as well, which I hope continues. The sixth graders are working on a writing piece and while it is frustrating to see how uninspired they are about writing, it has been rewarding to have one-on-one time with students to edit and try to engage them a level up from where they are at. I have had to feel out where I should stick to the basics of spelling and sentence structure and where I can engage some of the more advanced students in looking at context and complexity a bit more. With my passion for editing, it's hard to discern where to hold back certain input. But I've felt far more useful in this area than with math. In the third grade, they just started a class book so I also get to engage with words in there more. On Tuesday, I got saddled with two of the more distracted students in the class to go in back and read with them separately which was a bit chaotic but again, I was finally more than "overseer".

Tomorrow it will be all-hands-on-deck for our first-ever "youth resource fair" at White Pass. It has been a chaotic project to coordinate on but I feel like our content has ultimately come together to make for a well-rounded program. The only thing is that in all the planning of technicalities, promotion got left way by the wayside. So we're all hoping beyond hope that there is somehow a good turn out.

More on that on the flip-side!