Story by J.D. Wrightsman, Photos by Blake Ball and Clark Stanton

Toward the beginning of the school year the sixth graders participated in the outdoor Lab.
They lined up on the sidewalk, while the teachers gave them directions. One by one they filed into the pond area, notebooks in one hand and pencils in the other. They were ready to start the activity and observe the environment around them. 

“The outdoor lab is a chance for the students to get a good first-hand experience making observations in the real world around them,” Mr. Steven Sturgis, sixth grade science teacher, said.

“The students were taking qualitative and quantitative observations in the outdoor lab,” Sturgis said. The students prepared by setting up their notebooks for the notes they were going to take during the lab.

“I really enjoyed it because we got to go outside and do hands on science observations,” Kaopuiki added. They stayed out there for about a half-hour, wrote down notes, and used their five senses to observe the environment around them.

“I think they all enjoyed it,” Sturgis said. “To get out of the classroom and to move around, learning by doing is more fun.”

Kaopuiki said he had fun going to the outdoor lab because it got them out of the building, and he said it was fun.

“Some observations I had were we saw a lot of bugs and bees and insects living in their environment. We also found bones of some kind of animal,” Kyron explained.

At the end of the lab, the students and the teachers went back inside and the kids recalled the notes they took to finish up the outdoor lab activity.

Story by Danny Rhoad, Bryce Beery and Holden King

It all started six months ago. Team Atlas made a garden to bring birds back to the school campus.  Mr. Todd Stewart,  seventh grade social studies teacher, came up with the idea for the garden.

This project took place during  Core+ last year. In the process of making the garden, there were many challenges that they faced.

“The biggest challenge,  truthfully, was losing all of the wheat that we planted last year,” Stewart said.  

As a result, the teachers made a decision to plant another crop. The crop that they planted instead of the wheat was sunflowers. Stewart did this during the summer and planted the new crops. Other crops they planted were millet and tomatoes.

Mrs. Tracy Krause, seventh grade science teacher, also helped with the project. The biggest challenge she faced was having to maintain the farms during the summer.

Krause and Stewart visited the farms three times each this past summer.

“I picked the weeds quite often to give the other plants a chance to grow,” Stewart said.
Eighth graders, Colton Parker and Dylan Pennant-Jones, of Team Atlas, helped out on the project last year.   

“I helped out by watering and planting seeds,” Parker said.  

Pennant-Jones also helped. He said, “I helped dig up the grass, plant seeds, and helped maintain the garden.”

One plant that has been very successful is the millet. It has grown up to around ten feet tall. The reason Stewart and Krause planted millet was because it tied in with the social studies curriculum. It was a crop that the ancient Indians used. Millet It is a little seed that people would eat.

Once the millet is ready to harvest it turns into a seed, like rice. Stewart plans to harvest it and turn it into a bird seed-like mix.

Students really enjoyed this project. They got to go outside and plant, dig, water, and basically farm.
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“I would do the project again, but it wouldn't be as memorable without  Mr. Stewart and Mrs. Krause,” Parker said.