The fourth grade class, Room 24, Lincoln School, welcomes you to our web page.
Macro Elegance Photo Exhibit by Isabel
Left to right: Looking closely inside a walnut; listening to a gurgling tree at the school forest; planting acorns for future oaks; checking for 'floaters'.
Whooping crane trainer in costume; views of the ultra light planes which are "Mama" to the young whoopers on their first migrations south.
Room 24 students at Lincoln have exchanged some photos with middle school students in China near this wetland and nature preserve in Xianghai, China.
"There are the Red-crowned cranes, White-naped cranes, Demoiselle cranes, Siberian cranes, Sandhill cranes, and Hooded cranes.
The Red-crowned cranes, White-naped cranes, and Demoiselle cranes breed in the Xianghai wetlands pictured here.
The other three crane species stop at the wetlands during their migration seasons." - Ma Ping, teacher, Xianghai, China
The Xianghai National Nature Reserve is in Jilin Province, Northeast China. Water will be diverted from Inner Mongolia to the drought-hit wetlands,
one of the largest in the world, in the next few weeks.
Are you sure this is how Jackson Pollock got his start??
Groundhog sees her shadow; Groundhog gets new braces; Groundhog family reunion.
All photos: Dave Spitzer
"A sap run is the sweet good-bye of winter. It is the fruit of the equal marriage of the sun and the frosts." -John Burroughs, Signs and Seasons, 1886
Evaporator pan cooking down the sap (left); Carrying full buckets back to the sugar shack (right)
"It takes this many jugs of sap to make one little can of pure syrup."
"We love pure maple syrup!"
"Spring brings us the season of sap flow. Most people look for the robin as the sign that spring has finally arrived. Native Americans knew that spring came much earlier. They set up "sugar camps" in the early spring when sap flows from tree roots into trunks, breathing life back into the trees. They knew that sugaring time had arrived when streams began to trickle, animals awoke from their wintry slumber for a stretch, and icicles began to drip. Even the red squirrels knew and pierced the bark to drink the sugary sap. This magic flow inside the tree was (and still is) triggered by cold nights below freezing and warmer days with temperatures pushing above the freezing mark into the 40s.
Have you ever heard the term "sugar bush?" This means an area where maple trees grow abundantly and provide an area for maple sugaring, probably the same locations the Native Americans used as "sugar camps." Sugar maples have the greatest amount of sugar in the sap to make syrup out of, but you can also tap red and silver maples, box elders, and birch trees. An average maple will produce about 20 gallons of sap in the spring, which only amounts to 2 quarts of syrup. Most of the sap content is made up of water. Traditionally, the sap was boiled down over a hot fire for up to 5 days to get the thick liquid that we know as syrup. You can tap sugar trees yourself and try this traditional method of making syrup. Experts recommend using about six trees for your first maple sugaring experience. This will give you nearly a gallon of syrup. It takes a lot of work, but the rewards are sweet!
The sugar maple (Acer saccharum) was selected as the state tree by school children in a statewide vote in 1893."
EEK! Environmental Education Website, DNR
Prairie restoration and student service projects at the farm at the edge of the school forest.
International Crane Foundation Visit - 2004
Time Capsule Class of 2000-01
Last update: March 17, 2006
Editor/publisher: Eileen Potts Dawson epottsdawson@madison.k12.wi.us
Webmaster: webmaster@madison.k12.wi.us
