What Lives In Or Around the Bay?

(June 2008 - Riverhead, NY) Riverhead's geographic location and its many learning partners make it a wonderful natural laboratory. It is bordered by the Peconic River and the Great Peconic Bay on the south, and the Long Island Sound on the north. Students have access to the Long Island Science Museum, the Suffolk County Historical Society, the East End Arts Center, Cornell Cooperative Extension, the Atlantis Aquarium Facility and the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research. Going on the Explorer Boat at Atlantis is a culminating field trip for the second grade students at the Roanoke Avenue School.

Before their excursion, the Roanoke second graders received a batch of live crayfish as part of their science studies. They also spent time in both Readers’ and Writers’ Workshop studying how to read and write non-fiction. They read and researched the many things that live in or on the bay. After their reading, they stopped and jotted down in their own words in a topics/details organizer what they had learned in their research. Finally, they each chose information that they had learned to incorporate into a class Question/Answer book about “What Lives In Or Around the Bay.”

"They were very excited to find, touch and tell, as they discovered 'their' creature on the bay," states second grade teacher Stacy Tuohy.

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