Leah's blog

Forest Park-Mini Bioblitz

Submitted by Leah on Sat, 04/26/2008 - 4:03pm. Biodiversible Teens

Today Jasmine, Vincent and I went to Forest Park and counted the number of types of plants that were growing in an area of lawn 16 paces square with two oak trees near the fishing pond at the Eastern edge of the park.  Jamine and Vincent counted 18 species of plants including the oak trees. There was also a swarm of knats until a wind blew them away and two mallard males, a redwing blackbird, a grackle, and a cardinal flew by. I also think I saw a female goldfinch and there were many robins. Vincent noted that we saw the highest number of bird species this time, of any park visit.

When we were walking along the edge of a smaller pond an animal made a funny sweak/squack and jumped in the water.  We couldn't figure out what it was.  It looked rusty red out of the corner of my eye.  Could it have been a frog sunning itself?  It sounded almost like a bird, but it didn't surface.  Any ideas???

Leah

Hiking and Shades of Summer

Submitted by Leah on Tue, 04/15/2008 - 6:24pm. Biodiversible Teens
Hi All, 

It has been a while since we were able to blog.  Last Saturday we went to the Chubb Trail.  It was Jasmine's first trip to the woods.  We checked out what was growing.  We saw an abundance of Anemonella thalictroides, a plant I was familiar with from gardening but that I hadn't seen growing before in the wild.  The Anemonella had a variety of colors and sizes of flowers from a lavender pink to white.  Jasmine noticed that the flowers had different numbers of petals.  

Vincent, Jasmine and I matched paint samples to the flowers, moss, cedar berries, and leaves we found.  There were a few colors we couldn't match.  We took photos once we found a match, but the camera didn't register our colors well.  

Spring is quite late this year, or so it seems compared to last year which may have been too early.  The redbuds were just starting to color up on our April 12 hike, last year dogwoods, redbud and maple were all in full bloom on March 31 and had been bitten by frost by April 6.

Today Jessica and Vincent worked on researching park policies, while Jasmine finished a fellowship application for Shaw Nature Reserve.
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jasmine using leah's blog

Submitted by Leah on Tue, 04/01/2008 - 5:51pm. Biodiversible Teens
Today in Leah's group Leah, Vincent, and I went to the community garden to start drawing our designs on the billboard. The sketches I   started on are almost finished,but, the only thing I have to finish on the T is the flower design. Once we are all done with the sketches, we are going to paint the letters the colors tha we chose. Earlier today I did some research on some flowers that we were going to put in the garden. 

WHAT is drawn

Submitted by Leah on Tue, 04/01/2008 - 5:48pm. Biodiversible Teens

Hi this is Leah,

Houston (Graville) we have a problem, the teens still can't access their own blogs with the usernames and passwords they were given...and because they are writing on my blog, I can't comment on their blogs unless someone else has prior...

 That said, we had a good time today drawing out our WHAT sign in the community garden.  We used chalk to determine the placement of the letters, and then drew the letters and made adjustments for scale.  Vincent and Jasmine both encountered the difficulties of working in a large format, and the necessity to stand back and look at your product.  We were able to make adjustments so the sign looks really great and will read well when painted. 

 We will go paint the letters on Saturday. And photos will be included of our before and after!

 Leah

Week 4 (Vincent's BLog)

Submitted by Leah on Tue, 04/01/2008 - 5:41pm. Biodiversible Teens
Hi its me Vince again with another update on the Bioderversiable Teens. Well this week we are curently working on the Tower Grove garden. Our group went to the site of the garden and took our ideas to Dan so he can look over them to see what he liked. He told us that they all look good so our group decied  that each member design out their own letter to the word WHAT. I got the Letter W and it took me awhile to figure out how I was going to design it but sure enough an idea poped into my head and I got starting drawing it out on paper so it would be easier to draw it on the board of the garden. Are work is not done yet we still have to pant the sign on Saturday so people would be able to see it more clearly and what it says. 

The WHAT?! Man

Submitted by Leah on Sat, 03/29/2008 - 3:55pm. Biodiversible Teens

Hi all this is Leah writing from my blog.  

Two of our Biodiversible Teens don't know their passwords, so we need some technical assistance from Ms. C. Graville.  

Today we drove to save time, we have walked the neighborhood the other times.  I missed walking with the teens since we often make observations as we walk.  But driving allowed us to look at three sites, compare two of them well and get back to the building in time to work on our WHAT drawings.  

WHAT am I talking about?  At the community garden just North of Manchester on Tower Grove we got out of the car and were just starting to comment on how the garden was set up and how it looked.  A man waved at us from a ways away, he came running over and asked how we were.  His name is Dan and he is one of the garden founders.  He creates the sculptures and rockscaping in the garden.  He was very interested in our group working in the garden.  He actually wants us to start a project next week.  He wants us to paint WHAT on three pieces of plywood that are afixed to a fence in the garden.  The plywood was reclaimed from the roof of a nearby building.  Dan is going to provide us with paint and brushes on Tuesday.
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this is wahts up (Vincent blogging on Leah's blog)

Submitted by Leah on Sat, 03/29/2008 - 3:53pm. Biodiversible Teens
Hi my name is Vince and im going to tell you what we the Biodiversible teens have been doing for the last three weeks. Well for the first week we took a walk around the neighborhood and we found a tree that had been knock over from wear it was growing. Our group decided to take it and put it in the water to see would it continue growing with no soil but just water. the second week our group took a field trip to the batanical garden to see what kinds of plants would start growing in the middle of spring even though their was still some snow on the ground from the snow storm And this week we are working on a hands on project that has to  do with helping the community out. Our group currently  is working on making a WHAT sign for a neighborhood garden that we were looking at. Our grup got to meet the man behide the work of the gardan Dan. Our gruop got to talk with him ask a few qestions about the neighborhood garden. Thats when he offered our group the opportunity to make a WHAT sign for his gardan for people to see.
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