Square of Life
Our second grade class at Vermont School in Ohio participated in the Square of Life Project. Ohio is in the north east part of the country. In Ohio, spring is usually cool and then warm. Summer is hot. Winter is cold, and sometimes it snows. The fall changes from warm to cool. We recorded the temperature every day in our class in the morning. The highest temperature was 72 degrees Fahrenheit. The lowest temperature was 15 degrees Fahrenheit. We marked off three “squares” to observe. Two were on our playground and one was on the side of the building.
We chose to compare our “squares” to “squares” in Queensland, Australia. When we compared the things found in Queensland, Australia and Ohio, USA there were some similarities and differences.
These are some of the non-living things that were observed in both places. Both had dirt, plastic, trash, rocks, paper, metal and glass.
In Ohio, we found a penny (money.) We also found a broken shingle from a roof. We also found mud in our square. We also found a hair clip, a candy wrapper and a plastic spoon. That is the stuff we found in our square.
In Queensland, there was sand and cement. We thought it was interesting that they also found cricket pitch (fake grass.) We don’t play cricket in Ohio. We play games like soccer, football, baseball, tennis and basketball. We also do things like swim, dance and do karate.
When we compared the animals, we both saw butterflies. Another thing we saw that was the same was spiders. We also saw ants. We both saw flying bugs and beetles.
In Australia, there were green ants. We’ve never seen a green ant in Ohio. There were also meat ants. We’ve never heard of meat ants. We wonder what kind of meat they eat? They also found black beetles, spiders and cockroaches. We have those insects, but they were not in our “square.”
These are the living animals in Ohio that we found. The animals we found underground were a worm and a centipede. Fun fact: Worms eat dirt. We found two other interesting insects, bees and wasps. Fun fact: some bees die after they sting someone once. The most interesting insect we found was the lightning bug. Fun fact: Lightning bugs light up at night. They are not found everywhere in the United States, only certain places. These were the animals from Ohio.
When we looked at the plants that were found in both places we noticed that Australia and Ohio both have five of the same plants. Some of them are grass, leaves, weeds, roots and trees.
Here’s what kind of plants Australia found. They found, grass, eucalyptus trees, bark, prickles, leaves, clovers and weeds. The plants are mostly the same only the eucalyptus tree and prickles were different. We wonder if there are other plants in their “square?”
We had fun observing what was in our squares, and we learned some things. We learned about Australia like what cricket pitch is. We learned that people in Australia play cricket. We learned that not all animals are everywhere in the world. We learned that there were different kinds of ants. There were a lot of things that were the same. We had fun learning about our “squares” and Australia.