Third-grade students at Merrimac Elementary School recently attended a Save the Sea Turtles assembly presented by the Riverhead Foundation, where third- and fifth-grade students learned the importance of protecting Long Island’s sea turtle population. 

As part of their effort to help the sea turtles, students at Merrimac created a service learning project fundraiser and raised enough funds to adopt 16 sea turtles.  

An exciting addition to a unit on ecosystems and food chains was incorporated during a recent activity at Merrimac Elementary School in Lisa Mazzaglia’s fourth-grade class, with help from Technology Integration Specialist Claudia Camassa.

As part of the students’ study on ecosystems and the elements they are composed of, students utilized iPads and the Google Expedition Augmented Reality program to see the food chain come alive. Looking through the iPad, students were able to point the devices at certain markers on the floor that created digitized models of components found in the food chain, such as producers, consumers, omnivores, herbivores, carnivores and scavengers. Among the animals that came to life through the digital software were bears, deer and vultures.

As a culminating activity, students organized a food chain from start to finish using each of the components they studied throughout the unit. 

Two popular sugary treats were the main components of a recent STEAM lesson for kindergarten, first- and second-grade students at Merrimac Elementary School that explored chemical reactions and states of matter. 

As part of the experiment, students attempted to predict the outcome of mixing Mentos candy with diet Coca-Cola. After writing their predictions, teachers Brooke Sarfati and Katy Wilkinson took the students outside to conduct the experiment. Swiftly dropping the Mentos into the soda created a fizzy stream that erupted towards the sky. Students observed in amazement until the majority of soda left the bottle. 

Following the experiment, students learned that the reaction was caused by nucleation which occurred on the porous surface of the Mentos candy, causing the formation of carbon dioxide molecules that needed to escape. 

Concluding the activity, students sketched their observations and viewed videos on similar experiments incorporating a variety of variables.