Lincoln School Third Graders Go to the Pothole: A Chronicle in Words, Drawings, and Photographs of Life at a Pothole Near Madison, Wisconsin. Part Two, 2000-2001
Third Graders Continue a Tradition
Last school year we followed the adventures of teacher Becky Rosenberg's fourth grade class at Lincoln Elementary School as they explored and documented the life of a pothole. Ms. Rosenberg continue's the process with this year's Room 16, who are third graders. Text will be coming soon.
We started out looking for signs of animals since we knew it would be difficult to actually see many when we were there on our visits. We mainly looked for signs that animals had been there. We got interested in our questions by seeing different signs of animals on our first few trips, before we got into our specialty groups. We saw things like scat (a lot of it and different kinds), tracks, animal hair, and rubbings. We all had a different hypothosis about what animals actually live at this place and where we would find signs of them. Here are some initial hypotheses that our group members had:
Shosh: We think we will find a lot of animal signs but not all of the ones that are out there, of course.
Toby: I think we won't find all of the animals, but signs.
Drew: I think we'll find more animal signs around the pond and forests because the animals need water and there are plants near the trees.
Manuel: We will find more animal signs near the forest.
Procedures
We used a whole bunch of materials. Each time we brought our field notebooks, pencils, and data tables. Then there were things like binoculars, magnifying glasses, and plastic collection bags that we used later on. Each time we went to the Pothole we went to different spots.
We didn't have a protocol like the other groups because we tried to go to places we hadn't studied before, usually two each time. We would get information by looking around carefully, picking things up that were interesting and moving grasses and rocks. Once we arrived each visit, we decided as a group where we'd like to go that day. On our walk to those places, and once we got to our destination, we looked for animals in a few different ways. We learned that the best ways to do this are to push away grasses (to look for animal homes), keep an eye out for scat (animal droppings), move big stones and look under them and, depending on the season, look for tracks. We also found some trees that had obviously been rubbed by some animals (probably deer), so that the bark was worn away. We looked for bones, too, and even found a skull and some other deer body parts.
Drawing Conclusions
This is a chart of the live animals we saw, or signs of animals that we saw at the Pothole. Our chart isn't meant to imply that those animals didn't show signs at the Pothole, just that we didn't see everything, although we wish we could have. The muskrat was the one animal we saw both live and from signs everytime.
Dark circle: We saw animal signs (or in some cases live animals that day); Light circle: We had trouble identifying this, but we think our identifications were possibly true.
Muskrat House
From the animals signs we saw, we figured there were some animals that definitely lived at or visited the Pothole.
We used field guides and books to help us identify tracks, scat and different animals. One day in the winter when the pond was frozen over, we saw a deer carcass and parts of the deer in different places. Another day we found the tail of some animal that had to have been a rodent. The tail was long and white. When we got back to school another group told us that they saw the body that went to the tail. 
We then used an identification book to figure our it was a weasel. After looking over our observations, we are pretty sure we have seen signs of: deer, muskrats, various rodents, birds, fish, insects, and frogs. We have seen tracks of animals that could be fox, dogs, and maybe coyote. It's hard to tell because the tracks are similar and because we had a hard time finding clear tracks. It worked for us to go to different spots and stay away from the water. One reason for this was that we didn't want to get wet. Some kids in our group didn't have boots, so we had to stay in places that were drier. It didn't work to go to the same spots because we were getting bored. Also, around the pond was too wet, so going near there was more of a problem. If you forgot your boots on those wet days, you had better hope you had an extra pair of socks and shoes back at school! Two of the many things we learned were that: 1) We have to be exact when we're collecting information; and 2) there is lots of barbed wire around the edges of the Pothole.
Further Investigations
Each of us has other questions we would still like to investigate that have to do with our animal study. Here is just one from each of us:
Shosh: What animals leave scat in the Dogwoods?
Toby: How many different kinds of tracks can we find?
Drew: How many different kinds of insects could we find there?
Manuel: How many kinds of hawks can we find at the Pothole?
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Ms. Rosenberg, our teacher, for editing and setting up our writing. We would also like to thank Ellen, our group leader, and Ms. Standford Taylor, our principal, for letting us go to the Pothole. Also thanks to Ms. Barlow and the group members. Everyone was very helpful.
Pothole, Continued
The Pothole, Part One
The Pothole, Part Three
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Last update: June 2001
Editor/publisher: Eileen Potts Dawson epottsdawson@madison.k12.wi.us
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