Budding Environmentalists & Engineers in Middle School

Fifth Grade
After a year of COVID-19 shutdowns, the Barnesville flower beds were looking bare and forgotten, that is until Barnesville fifth-graders took action!  Students weeded and cleared the flower beds of debris, raked and turned the soil, and then got busy planting. 

The students decided to plant a special mix of flowers for butterflies!  The mix included lots of milkweed seeds, the desired food for monarch butterflies.  Milkweed plants are easily killed by herbicides, causing a food shortage for monarchs.  Students are hoping their butterfly garden will attract many new fluttering visitors to Barnesville School soon!

Sixth Grade
Peer-to-peer learning is all about students teaching other students.  Sixth graders Olivia and Isabella did just that when they presented a challenge to their classmates to design and build a small town with infrastructure that is eco-friendly and sustainable.

Students used LEGOs to build their towns.  Features included a plethora of trees, solar panels, windmills, and more!  One group designed an open-roof plant conservatory with modified piping to disperse rainwater throughout the conservatory, allowing plants throughout the building to be watered with rainwater.  

Another group designed a new car that runs via UV light and reduces pollution.  Through collaboration and critical thinking, these sixth-grade students showed they are preparing to enter the world with innovative thinking and sustainability in mind.

Seventh Grade
This spring, Barnesville seventh-graders experienced a school tradition, the Trout in the Classroom (TIC) program!  In late March, students received their trout eggs and worked for two months to raise the rainbow trout from eggs to fingerlings.  During this time, students also researched and learned about trout life cycles and their ecosystems.

During the course of the TIC program, students performed daily tests on the trout's water.  They checked the temperature, pH level, ammonia, nitrates, and nitrite levels to make sure the fish were living in healthy water.  After eight weeks of raising the trout, students traveled to Seneca Creek to release their trout fingerlings!