From Appreciation to Advocacy

Today, we saw the children's cumulative knowledge and experiences inform two different, yet related discussions. In one, we witnessed how adept they have become at observing, noticing details, forming hypotheses, and testing theories. In the other, we see how they are adding new information to their rich body of knowledge, how deeply they have come to appreciate the natural world, and their understanding of the interdependence of all living things.   

A few boys were playing under one of the trees when they looked up and noticed lots of large fruit, mostly green but starting to change color. They wondered what type of fruit it was. 
​Kian: Maybe it’s a peach. Because it’s green and it turns to…oh, maybe it’s a plum. 
Lisa: Why do you think it might be a plum? 
Rowan: Because it has those lines. 
Rowan: I think it’s a peach, or an orange. 
Lisa: Why do you think? 
Rowan: Because I ate them before and I know what they look like. 
Kian: Peaches are also orange.
Rowan: And mangoes are orange or yellow. They’re my favorite. 

Sam joins the boys. He pulls on the fruit, but it doesn’t come off.
Lisa: It doesn’t come off easily when you pull. What does that tell you?  
Sam: It’s not ready yet. 
Lisa: What other clues tell us it’s not ready? 
Sam: It’s green!
Rowan: When it turns a different color, that means it’s ripe. 
Kian: I see one turning orange.
Jack: I have a cherry tree, but the cherries aren’t ripe now. I have peaches at my house, but we don’t grow them. 
Lisa: So, how can we find out if these are peaches? 
Rowan: We can look it up.
Lisa: Yes. How else? 
Rowan: We could get a book about fruit and read it. 
Lisa: We could do that. What’s another way we could find out? 
Kian: If it’s orange, we can get it. 
Rowan: Then we eat it. If it’s not ripe yet, that means we didn’t get it at the right time. 
Lisa: And if it is ripe? 
Jack: It will taste like my grown and ripe peaches at home. 
Lisa: How long to you think we’ll have to wait? 
Jack: Thirty days, forty-five days, one hundred days? 
Rowan: One thousand million days? 
Lisa: Should we have everyone guess? 
Rowan: No, I don’t want to have a contest.
Lisa: Then what should we do? 
Rowan: We can just wait. 
Lisa: I’m thinking about the fact that it’s fall. What happens in the fall? 
Rowan: The leaves fall.
Jack: But if the peach fell on your head that would hurt. But it would be good if you caught it. 

Nearby in the outdoor classroom, Louise talked with a few friends about a video she had watched in which a young girl gave a speech, saying “They’re cutting down the trees and there are animals in the trees. When we cut down the trees, they die.” Louise said they needed to do something to help the trees. Agreeing, Jossie exclaimed, “Let’s make posters!” 

Back in the classroom, Louise created a sign that read "NO CUTTING TREES DOWN." She explained to her classmates, “I want to make a sign for the trees, so no one cuts them down and they’re all over. On my daddy’s phone I saw a girl and she said don’t cut them down, ‘cause they’re beautiful and they have little animals and if you cut them down they might not live their lives ‘cause trees give us air.” When asked what they should do next, she said “We can make signs and we can go on a walk to see if anyone is cutting down the trees, and show them the signs so they stop.”
 
After she had finished her sign and shared it with a few classmates, more discussion followed: 
Elle: If all the trees get cut down, we can’t breathe. 
Rowan: Trees make the earth happy. 
Lisa: What does that mean? How do trees make the earth happy? 
Sally: Trees and plants and flowers make the earth happy. If they died the earth would be dark. Then the little rabbits wouldn’t find their food if you smooshed their plants.