The Square of Life Project Rymfire Elementary School - Mrs. Lujan’s 4th Grade Science Class Palm Coast, Florida Fall 2010 Participants

Our Square of Life Findings We made five separate squares for our “Squares of Life”. We constructed our squares in our school garden in late October. The weather at that time was still hot. The temperature was in the 80’s. Florida doesn’t get snow. In northern Florida, we get more seasonal changes than further south.

The School We Chose We chose a school from the project database to compare our findings with. We chose a school located in Strongsville, Ohio, because their climate is different from ours and our teacher is originally from that area. Ohio gets snow and Florida does not.

Our Similarities! The living things that both of our schools found were: Ants, flying bugs, spiders, worms, and caterpillars. Both of our schools also found trees, weeds, and grass.

Our Differences! The school in Ohio found: Beetles and a snake. Our school in Florida found: A spider, a snail, lizards, and frogs. Although both schools found caterpillars, the caterpillar they found in Ohio was a “Wooly Bear” which is said to help them predict how harsh their winter will be. We don’t have “Wooly Bears”.

Differences in Plant Findings! The school in Ohio found: Yellow mushrooms and brush. We found: A grass plant. There were also differences in the trees our schools found. The school in Ohio had Maple Trees, Oak Trees, and Black Gum Trees. Our school had a Ruby Red Grapefruit Tree.

Non-Living Things Both schools found: Dirt, metal, paper, and small rocks. The school in Ohio found mud, we didn’t. Our school found seashells, and plastic in our squares. The dirt in Ohio was different from ours. Their dirt was hard and claylike and ours is mostly sand based.

What We Learned! Our class learned that even though Ohio is located over 900 miles away from us, our environments still have many similarities. We concluded that the similarities are because we are both located in North America. We believe that our differences are because of our different climate patterns!