​Dear Friends, 
I have been enjoying doing classes on google. I hope to visit every classroom before the end of "school". Looking at their faces is like looking over a field of wildflowers!
Speaking of which, another wave of flowers is appearing in the garden. Spiderwort, Tradescantia ohioensis, has brilliant blue, three petaled flowers, in clusters, each lasting one day. At the end of the day each petal turns into a drop of blue liquid!!

Also, in our garden are the pea like blue plumes of Baptisia australis. It is actually native to lands a bit farther south, but lovely nevertheless. 

Speaking of flowers native to a bit south of us, don't miss seeing the Tulip tree on Sunnyside, on the northside between Maplewood and Rockwell. Impossibly beautiful "tulips " in bloom by the thousands!

In the school garden hundreds of "Windflowers", Anemone canadensis, are nodding their daisy like flowers in the breeze. In the bioswale, dozens of our native Iris, Blue Flag, dot the lush wetland growth.

Check it all out friends.

Mr. Leki

Dear Waters Ecology Friends, 
Besides working in the garden and on the river, hopefully to make them more beautiful, healthy and bio-diverse, for our kids to experience and learn from, when we finally get back to school.
I've been trying to do guest appearances with some of our classrooms.
Recently I have visited the 6th grades, first talking about creating pandemic journals, historical journals that each child uses to document their experiences, internal AND external, including close observation and questioning of nature. 
We also did a lesson on CSOs (combined sewage overflows) and how we can help STOP sewage from entering the  river.  It starts with an understanding of our homes, and pipes, and streets and habits.  In the end it IS up to us. I sent out a wonderful video clip of  Kari Steele, head of the Board of Commissioners, who was a former chemist for the District, asking people to NOT flush the various "wipes" down the toilet.
It reminds the kids that besides clogging pipes (and sump pumps) these nonflushables end up in the river and hanging from tree limbs during CSOs (sewage overflows)

I hope to visit all the grade levels to figure out ways for students and families can have at least some of the experiences of the ecology program. Much of our paradigm is students directly encountering nature (and human culture) and making assessments, thinking, asking questions, jotting down their own, individual thoughts. 


 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CbnYdRetD4&feature=youtu.be


I'm also visiting with 1st grade, checking in on their tree ID memory. They are GOOD! I encourage you to take your 1st graders for walks and look at the trees: All of them. Collect leaves. Describe their shape and other unusual attributes. They also sang with me : Oh the trees! and Who has seen the wind. 

Mr Leki