Elementary Presentations Summary
We, the HMS Weed-pullers, as a part of our project, went to Houghton Elementary School and presented 4th and 5th graders with information about invasive species in our area and with a challenge to plant milkweed seeds (a native plant) or a white pine seedling ( another native plant), to help our environment and heighten the amount of knowledge in our area about invasive species. To do this, we gave each class of students a certain number of handouts, with a checklist to tell them what to do. Thy were to hand in the checklist when they did all that it said on it. On the handout, we gave the elementary students the address to our website ( hmsinvasivespecies.weebly.com/our-project) and challenged them to go and learn more from the website.
We gave an incentive for the class in each grade who had the highest percentage of students turn in their forms and for the winning grade. For the winning class, we gave them extra recess, and for the winning grade, we will give them an apple tree, dedicated to them, on the school playground.
45% of all 4th and 5th grade students turned in their forms, meaning that they learned more about invasive species, and planted their native plants. This turnout is a good thing. Almost half of the students learned more about the spread and harm of invasive species. The remaining 55% of the students may have not turned their forms in for different reasons. Some of them might have forgotten. Some presenters might have not done a good job explaining the material. We also saw that some teachers had prepared their classes beforehand, lecturing them on native and non-native plants and invasive species, while some classes were completely uninformed because a substitute or the teacher forgot until the last minute.
We gave an incentive for the class in each grade who had the highest percentage of students turn in their forms and for the winning grade. For the winning class, we gave them extra recess, and for the winning grade, we will give them an apple tree, dedicated to them, on the school playground.
45% of all 4th and 5th grade students turned in their forms, meaning that they learned more about invasive species, and planted their native plants. This turnout is a good thing. Almost half of the students learned more about the spread and harm of invasive species. The remaining 55% of the students may have not turned their forms in for different reasons. Some of them might have forgotten. Some presenters might have not done a good job explaining the material. We also saw that some teachers had prepared their classes beforehand, lecturing them on native and non-native plants and invasive species, while some classes were completely uninformed because a substitute or the teacher forgot until the last minute.
Parent-Teacher Conference Summary
At parent teacher conferences, 46 adults and students signed that they approve of and support the HMS Weed Pullers. This represents about 60% of the parents that showed up for conferences that evening.
We handed out flyers to parents and teachers at the school during parent-teacher conferences on the evening of 11/06/14. Many people stopped at our booth and observed what we had posted on a board and took part in reading and listening to the information that we had printed out. We always had at least three team members at the booth and most of the time, there were more than that; all but one team member was able to participate. We stayed at our booth from 4 to 7 in the evening because that was the entire time that parent teacher conferences were going on that evening. A few participating parents were in such a hurry to meet with a large number of teachers that they stopped briefly, picked up a flyer, and said they would visit our website later. It's good that we had the flyer to hand out, otherwise these parents wouldn't have a way of learning more about our project.
On the negative side, we did not get a chance to reach parents who came to conferences on Friday, 11/07/14 because we did not have our booth running on that day. Running the booth both days would have increased the number of visitors who listened to us talk about our project. Also, sometimes parents would walk by while we were already talking to people at our booth; we missed potential visitors due to this. it might have been good to have a team member passing out flyers in the middle of the hall (which we actually did start doing later in the evening).
We handed out flyers to parents and teachers at the school during parent-teacher conferences on the evening of 11/06/14. Many people stopped at our booth and observed what we had posted on a board and took part in reading and listening to the information that we had printed out. We always had at least three team members at the booth and most of the time, there were more than that; all but one team member was able to participate. We stayed at our booth from 4 to 7 in the evening because that was the entire time that parent teacher conferences were going on that evening. A few participating parents were in such a hurry to meet with a large number of teachers that they stopped briefly, picked up a flyer, and said they would visit our website later. It's good that we had the flyer to hand out, otherwise these parents wouldn't have a way of learning more about our project.
On the negative side, we did not get a chance to reach parents who came to conferences on Friday, 11/07/14 because we did not have our booth running on that day. Running the booth both days would have increased the number of visitors who listened to us talk about our project. Also, sometimes parents would walk by while we were already talking to people at our booth; we missed potential visitors due to this. it might have been good to have a team member passing out flyers in the middle of the hall (which we actually did start doing later in the evening).
Results Of Our Work With Japanese Knotweed
We (The HMS Weed Pullers) went on a field trip to Michigan Technological University to learn about exterminating Japanese Knotweed. While there we found substances such as Coffee, Vinegar, and pesticides used to treat the Japanese Knotweed. We learned how difficult it is to pull Japanese Knotweed out of the ground (even with the help of special wrenches). We also counted how many growing stems there were in a square meter treated with each substance. Not only is Japanese Knotweed hard to pull, but the only real solution is to use pesticides for many years, and the pesticides will also kill surrounding plants. We would also like to thank Meral Jackson and Jill Fisher, who oversaw the work in which we helped to do. Without them we could not have found Japanese Knotweed plants that have been treated.
Website Visitors
As of 1/12/15, our total number of hits to the team website is at 966! Our team is excited about this number because we had set a goal of 500 visits and we surpassed this goal. We estimate that the number of visits by our own team (mainly while the website was under construction) to be about 250, so over 710 hits are from other people!