
Welcome to week 9 of our one year pond study. For the rest of the posts in this series please see here.
This week I am determined to post about all the activities we did around our tree study. It was touch and go for a while, because in our enthusiasm we have been to the pond twice this week, once for the tree study and the second time we drove past and saw our heron. Now our heron has been with us for years but each time we visit the pond for our nature study it has been conspicuous only by its absence! So when we caught a glimpse of him, we raced home, grabbed the camera and snapped away. This was in the evening time as the sun was gradually going down so the lighting was just wonderful. I think this pond study has given me a hobby, because I LOVE taking photos of nature! The first set of photos will be our night-time visit and the second set our tree study. Enjoy!










For our tree study my aims this week were simple and all to do with the Lichen:
- Read about the Ash tree
- Learn about the different types of Lichen
- Take some home with us and look at it under a magnifying glass
- Learn about the implication of the presence of Lichen on a tree with regards to the surrounding air pollution
- Attempt to draw a branch with Lichen
- Complete our note booking page for April using the dried Lichen
First we read about the Ash tree using this book:

Then we visited our pond for some pictures and to gather the bits and pieces we needed to do our activities at home:





We collected a small branch with a good amount of Lichen on it and went home. On returning I had the children learn a bit more about the different types of lichen:

We learn that the type of Lichen present indicates the level of air pollution. Our branch contained three different types of Lichen, indicating that air pollution was very low. We studied the Lichen under a magnifying glass:


Isn’t nature just magnificent?

We decided to make our journal page for April all about the ecosystem. We made the tree out of our drawings and stuck dried on Lichen on the truck. The rest was drawn or sketched and we added notes to remind us of the components of an ecosystem:

So enjoying the pond study!