Sea Otter Games

Today we completed our Otter Quiz Show. Last week the students studied information about the sea otter, sea urchins, the kelp forest and the relationship of this ecosystem to people. In a quiz show format the students worked in cooperative teams to answer questions related to the information studied. The class did a terrific job, supported one another and worked together.

To tie together our study of otters and Fort Ross, we went outside to play another sea otter hunting simulation game. The game dramatizes the impact unregulated hunters can have on a population of otters. After 2 or 3 rounds the otter reproduction rate was unable to keep up with the hunting rate. The population plummeted to zero otters by the end of round four.

Back in the classroom we debriefed the game. Students came up with ways to improve the "rules" of play. Next, we filled in a graph based on real information collected by the clerks of the Russian American Company in the 1800s tracking the otter harvests in the Bodega Bay and San Francisco Bay regions. Not surprisingly, the otter population diminishes in a similar pattern to the simulation game.

Homework:
Fort Ross crossword puzzle and Reading Log - Students should work on the puzzle for at least 15 minutes. They are not expected to complete the puzzle tonight. We will pick it up in class again to work on more.

Fourth grade math:
The purple group's question of the day was: How can we make a survey to find out an amount of something? Pairs of students worked together to come up with survey questions that would measure the amount of something, and that they could ask of two different groups to compare them. Students came up with questions like:

• How many different kinds of classes do you take after school or on weekends?
• How many people did you ride to school with you today?
• How many kids under 18 live with you?

Students will be collecting data for these surveys next week, since Cerrito has their feast tomorrow.

Fourth grade math homework:
Purple group should complete Unit 2, pages 15-16, which you can download here. Calculate mode, median, range, range above median, or range below median to make conclusions. Due Monday, 11/21.

4th grade Blue Group: Today we continued to work on making bar graphs and determining the scale to use to represent data on a graph successfully. Homework page due tomorrow: Double Bar Graphs

5th graders finished their 3D models of rectangular prisms, calculating surface area and volume. They worked on their problems of the week, as well, which are due tomorrow.