Captivating Canal!

On Thursday our class traveled to the Cape Cod Canal Visitor's Center. This year is the 100th anniversary of the canal.  The original canal was built back in 1914 by August Belmont. A lot of work went into digging the canal, but it was worth the time and effort because ships really needed a quicker and safer route to deliver their cargo. Going around Cape Cod meant lots of shipwrecks and extra time and money spent traveling. 
  The first canal was VERY narrow and twisty. The current was so strong that many vessels had accidents and it was also very challenging to take a ferry from one side of the canal to the other. We learned that school children had to carry buckets of sand with them on the ferry because the boat caught fire quite often! There is so much to learn and enjoy about the canal past and present. Here are some of our favorite facts that we learned while studying the Cape Cod Canal:
* There are 3 bridges that cross the canal: Sagamore, Bourne, and Rail Road.
* The canal's current changes directions ( East to West) every 6 hours. 
* The maximum height of a ship's mast that wants to enter the canal is 135 feet.
* Many animals can be observed in and around the canal including: whales, porpoises, seals, fish, birds, and lobsters. 
* The canal's length is 17.4 miles, its depth is 32 feet, and its width is 500 feet.
* There are cameras all along the canal to monitor vessels' activities.
* A vessel has the right of way at the Railroad bridge, so a train must wait. 
* Swimming in the canal is forbidden. You may only fish from the shore, not while on a boat. 
*Dynamite was used to break up the gigantic boulders that were in the way of digging out the canal.
*The construction of the canal turned Cape Cod into an island! 
*The canal connects Buzzard's Bay and Cape Cod Bay. 
* The Cape Cod Army Corps of Engineers bought the canal from August Belmont and improved it a lot by making it wider and straighter. They are still in charge of the canal today, and our tax dollars go to maintain the needs of the canal. 

During the field trip we saw the current change three times. We went on a scavenger hunt inside of a 40 foot patrol boat, had 3 different lessons from the expert rangers, played a trivia game,and finished by eating our lunches right next to the canal! Our behavior was superb and we really appreciate all of the parents who came along to chaperone!!!

 

Powerful Pollination

  

Pollination is when a new seed is made inside of a flower. Pollination partners work together to pollinate flowers. They work together like a honeybee and an apple tree. Did you know that pollinators don't try to collect the pollen on purpose?Most pollinators are attracted to a flower's nectar but, bees are an exception to the rule and take both pollen and nectar.

Bees collect pollen in their pollen baskets to make honey. All the food you eat like strawberries, blueberries and cranberries need to be pollinated. If pollination did not happen we wouldn't have all the food we eat. We also would not have milk or meat, because cows eat grass and hay, we also wouldn’t have chocolate, which is made from the cocoa bean. Those are only two of the things we wouldn’t have without pollination.  All of the food we eat depends on pollination.

 A flower must have a shape, color, and smell that appeals to its pollinator in order for pollination to happen. Most flowers give off a sweet smelling scent to attract their pollination partner, but one flower species smells like rotting meat to lure their partner...can you guess??? A fly!!!

In order for a seed to be formed a grain of pollen needs to get to an embryo, for example, a butterfly lands on a flower to get nectar and gets a light dusting of pollen. Next the butterfly lands on another flower of the same species and one of the grains of pollen gets on the stigma of that flower, after a while the pollen grows a little tube down to an embryo (also called the egg). The egg then gets fertilized and becomes a seed, but the only way a seed can be formed is with a pollen grain, getting on the stigma from the same type of flower as that the pollen grain came from.

We did an outside observation on drawing the parts of a flower. Here are a couple parts of the flower: ovary, style, stigma which all together is called the pistil. The pistil is the female parts.We also saw all of the male parts including the anther and filament, which together is called the stamen. Who knew how amazing flowers could be?!! Maybe the next time you are outside, you could try observing and identifying the reproductive parts of a flower!!!

Written by: David K, Jordan, Shaun, and AJ.