March 2004 Week 1 Introductions

Participants are listed by latitude and longitide, starting from the northernmost latitude. 54:52N-38:20S | Firsts | Map | Quest [54:52N 6:17W] UNITED KINGDOM Northern Ireland, Ballymena P6/7KS Ballymena Primary School, Ms. Simpson & Ms. Lee's fourth graders We are a town school with 350 pupils aged 4 to 11 years. We care about the environment. Our school is an eco-school for life. We have done lots of work in our grounds. We have a pond,an orchard,willow beds and a wood land walk. Our school is beside a public park. Ballymena is a large market town.The River Braid runs through Ballymena. Slemish mountain is nearby. St.Patrick(the patron saint of Ireland) looked after sheep and pigs on Slemish. [45:44N 4:52E] FRANCE Bourg-Argental College du Pilat, Claudie Ferret's sixth graders Hello! we live in Bourg Argental in the south east of france next to Lyon. Bourg Argental is a small town. It is surrounded by mountains and hills. It is in a regional park and its name is Pilat. Farmers grow corn , potatoes , carrots , cabbages , turnips and there are forests of pine-trees and somes beeches , silver birches , ash trees. We have got four seasons: In Spring , the hills blooms. In summer, it's very hot and dry. In autumn, it's quite hot and very wet. In winter, it's often freezing and snowy. We are a group of 20 pupils in the project. We learn English at school. Our school is at the entrance of Bourg Argental. It's opposite the swimming pool, the playing fields and the river. It's surrounded by meadows and forests. There are 190 pupils and 28 teachers. Our headmaster is Mr G. Ferrier. There are 3 buildings. We can go to the clubs: theatre; gardening; table tennis; and choral. We come to school by bus from 6 different villages around. School starts at 8h30 and finishes at 4h40. [45:19N 75:40W] CANADA Ontario, Ottawa Elizabeth Park Public School, Ms. Chartrand's first graders We are a Grade 1 class at Elizabeth Park Public School in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Ottawa is the capital city of Canada and we think it is a beautiful city. The Rideau Canal flows through downtown Ottawa. In the summer it is full of boats but in the winter it freezes and becomes the longest outdoor skating rink in the world. We have a carnival called Winterlude and people come from all over the world to compete in ice carving competitions. In the spring we have the Tulip Festival. There are thousands of tulips in gardens all over the city. Most of us are hoping for an early spring, but, the groundhog saw his shadow so it looks like winter will stay around for awhile. We are happy to be participating again this year in this project and are looking forward to seeing everyone else's weather! [44:38N 22:39E] ROMANIA Mehedinti, Drobeta Turnu Severin Liceul Teoretic "Gheorghe Titeica", Ms. Rachitan & Ms. Rosu's students We are a group of students from Romania and we want to join this projects because computers, internet and English are among our hobbies. And we think that is very nice spending your free time doing what we like best. And now a few words about our high school. It is one of the best schools in our country . Students learning here have always obtained very good results in local and international school competitions and we may say that we are very proud to be some of them. Our town, Drobeta Turnu Severin is situated on the left bank of the Danube. Here you can find many historical monuments, schools and many, many parks. Our town is even called “The town of roses”. Everything looks great in spring and we would like to share this with you. Scanvenger Hunt: Where is Drobeta Turnu Severin situated ? Now let us introduce ourselves individually. [43:09N 88:18W] USA Wisconsin, Merton Merton Primary School, Ms. Kondrakiewicz's second graders Hello! We are second graders in Mrs. K's (Kondrakiewicz) class! There are 20 kids in our class. We are excited to begin our online project with other kids from around the world! We live in a small town called Merton which is in the state of Wisconsin in the USA. Only about 1,400 people live in our town. Even though our town is small, we have a big school. There are 4 or 5 sections of each grade level in our school. We are ready for winter to end and spring to arrive! [43:07N 79:01W] USA New York, Grand Island Kaegebein Elementary School, Ms. Hartman's third graders Hello to everyone from Grand Island, New York USA! We are a third grade class at Kaegebein Elementary School in Grand Island, New York State, USA. Grand Island is a suburban town on an island in the Niagara River. The Niagara River is actually a strait on the Canadian border that connects Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. Grand Island is located between the larger cities of Buffalo, New York, USA and Niagara Falls, New York, USA. We are fortunate to live near the beautiful Niagara Falls, which are actually 2 different falls called American Falls and Canadian Falls. Our climate is temperate; it changes greatly from season to season. Our winters are famous for all the snow everyone thinks we get, but there really isnāt snow on the ground all winter, although it is often cold. Winter temperatures can get down to 0 degrees F, with wind chills of 40 degrees below zero. Schools may close for a day when it is that cold or if there is a heavy snowfall. Springs are rainy and cool, although . Our summers are generally sunny with temperatures ranging from 60 degrees F to a few rare days in the 90ās F. Our autumns are beautiful with trees changing colors. One of our first signs of fall to report is the migration of large flocks of Canada geese as they have been spending some time in our playground! This year our class has 31 students and 2 teachers. The boys and girls in our class are 8 and 9 years old. We have been learning how to read and locate places on maps and globes. We would also like to learn about how people live in other places. [42:44N 73:41W] USA New York, Green Island Heatly School, Ms. Kirch's second graders Heatly School is about 15 minutes north of Albany, NY on the Hudson River. We are a K-12 school with a total of 315 students. There are 25 students in our class. Many of our parents and grandparents went to school at Heatly too. We are an older community with families living in a flat above grandparents. Henry Ford used to camp on the river shore. He built a radiator plant here but it has closed with all production now in Michigan. Many of us play soccer or bowl in the fall. We also like to play at the park after school. We all walk to school because there are no buses in our district. Green Island is about 2 square miles in area. We like to watch the birds and boats outside our classroom window. [42:43N 71:11W] USA Massachusetts, Methuen Comprehensive Grammar School, Ms. Billings, Ms. Fichera, Ms. Fresco, Ms. O'Connor, Ms. Paolino, and Ms. Stone's second graders GEOGRAPHY of METHUEN, MASSACHUSETTS Methuen is located 27 miles north of Boston and 25 miles west of the ocean beaches of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. It sits on the Massachusetts/New Hampshire border and is part of the Merrimack River Valley. The normal January temperature is about 25 degrees, and the normal July temperature is about 73. However, the winter of 2003 has been colder than normal with the last time we had snow of 6 inches or more was in mid December. The February 27th temperature at 7:00 AM (EST) was 20 degrees. The expected high for today is 42 degrees. We expect sunny to partly cloudy weather conditions. The weather forecasters are telling us to expect temperatures in the 50s this weekend. That will be a real treat for us! Hello! We are the second grade boys and girls at the Comprehensive Grammar School in Methuen, Massachusetts. Our school, C.G.S. for short, has 1,100 students from pre-school through grade 8, including special needs and bilingual students. Although we are a large school, we like to think of ourselves as one big family. We feel very lucky to have such a beautiful school with many people who make the C.G.S. a fun place where we come to learn. There are 122 students in our 6 second grades. We have been working very hard, and right now we are learning to write cursive. We are looking forward to learning about how spring arrives in different parts of the world. We hope to have many observations to report each week. We haven't seen much change of color in the grass, shrubs, bushes, or trees around here. About the only change we see is that the snow piles are disappearing or shrinking in some places. [41:46N 80:51W] USA Ohio, Austinburg Austinburg Elementary School, Ms. Gray's second graders Hi from Austinburg, Ohio, USA Austinburg is a Pre-K - 6 building with about 350 students. Austinburg Elementary is part of the Geneva Area City School System. We are the multi-handicapped building for our school system. We even have an elevator in our building for students who use wheelchairs and walkers. We have 23 children in our class - 12 girls and 11 boys. We live in Austinburg, Geneva, Geneva on the Lake, Jefferson, and Ashtabula. Cleveland is the closest large city. We also live close to Lake Erie. Because of Lake Erie, we receive lake-effect snow in the winter. Lake-effect snow is unique to only a few areas of the world. Areas downwind of large bodies of water often receive more snow than the surrounding region because of the interaction of the cold air and the warm lakes. Water in the lakes store up high amounts of heat energy from the previous summer. This heat is released through evaporation. The cold air blows over the warm waters of the Great Lakes and picks up the evaporated moisture. As the air rises up over the higher elevations of land downwind of the lakes, it cools further and can't hold the moisture it has picked up. That moisture condenses, forming clouds and snow over what we know as the "snow belt" areas of Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. We live in the primary snow belt. The primary snow belt gets anywhere from 60 to 110-plus inches of snow per year. Lake Erie influences the local climate throughout the entire year. Winter snows help the local skiing/snow industries. At other times of the year the moderating effects of the marine climate allow for the cultivation of excellent fruit and vegetable crops, and the cooling effects of the lakes during the summer months provide a natural air conditioner to the region. Austinburg is named after one of its founders, Judge Eliphalet Austin. Austinburg is a rural area. We have a bank, a small grocery store, a post office, fire department, pizza shop, several restaurants, a nursing home, a dance hall, several gas stations, Flying J Travel Center, McDonald's, Burger King, a lumber yard, a nursery, a feedmill, several churches, an industrial park, private schools, and several hotels. Our favorite school activities are reading, math, science, and working on computers. We have five computers in our room. Each of them is connected to the Internet. We work on various programs and/or projects on the computers every day. We have just finished an online Concentration-type game about Ohio. Read more about our school and town! [41:38N 87:36W] USA Illinois, Dolton Youth For Excellence Home School, Ms. Day's fifth graders Hi all! We are excited about beginning this project and sharing it with you all. As our school name lets you know, we are a homeschool. This is our fourth year. There are two students, boys, 5th grade and 1st grade. We are located in Dolton, Illinois. Dolton is a small community (population 25,000) located in the south suburbs of Chicago. Dolton was once the home of a tribe of the Potowatomie Indians and then the Sac, Illini and Miami Indians. The first non-Indian settler was J. Clark Matthews who bought the land from the Indians in 1832. George Dolton later settled here and joined Matthews in a business venture. Starting in 1850, many settlers also came from Holland and Germany. The temp in Illinois for the last few days has been in the high 20s or low 30s. This is warmer compared to the colder weather we had a couple of weeks ago. However, all in all, this winter has been mild. Today it is 39 F. and drizzling. Our first rain fell on February 20. It has been mostly cloudy since then. Snow has begun to melt quit a bit. Ponds are thawing. Grass is still brown and trees are bare. There are no signs of birds migrating back, although we have seen one of our neighborhood squirrels after about a month or so of colder weather. People are not bundled in coats, hats, scarves. Some are wearing light jackets. You see more people out at the stores. Our days are definitely getting longer. It won't be long before our CST will change. But one of the things about this area is that it is known to change, so hopefully we won't have to "hold our breathe" long. :-) [41:14N 84:07W] USA Ohio, Holgate Holgate Elementary School, Ms. Wagner & Ms. Burkhart's second graders Welcome! This year Mrs. Wagner's Sensational Second Grade Class has 16 students. Six of the students will collect and enter the weekly data. The complete class will explore the Signs of Spring site and watch for Spring's Firsts as well as bring data in for Weather Data Day. With Ohio being one of the 50 states in the United States of America, the small village of Holgate is found in Northwest Ohio. Holgate Local Schools is considered a rural school in which grades K-12 are housed in a series of building which are connected at one site. 590 students from Holgate, New Bavaria, Pleasant Bend, and the surrounding area attend our school. The original part of our school building was constructed in the early 1800s. During the 2005 - 2006 school year, we hope to be in our new school. Weather conditions have halted its construction until the warm and dryer spring weather arrives. This past winter, the ice and snow has caused us to miss six days of school, one whole week in January! Usually our summers are hot and dry with spring and autumn being cool and wet, some springs are wetter than others. Temperatures may vary as much as 30F degrees in a 24 hour period. So, if you donāt like the weather in Northwest Ohio just hang around for a few days because it will probably change! From the beginning of the third week in February to the end of the week, we will see temperatures rise from single digit to above freezing. The land in our area is very flat and good for farming. Crops grown around our area are corn, soybeans, sunflowers, and wheat. You can see for miles and miles after the crops in the fields have been harvested in the fall. The closest river, the Maumee River, runs through the town of Napoleon which is located north of Holgate. The people in that town get their water from the river, we get our water from wells deep in the ground. The closest large city is Toledo, Ohio where the waters of the Great Lakes help bring goods to our area of the United States. [40:24N 80:11W] USA Pennsylvania, Oakdale Donaldson Elementary School, Ms. Huling's first graders Hello Signs of Spring 2004 Friends! We are one of three first grade classes at the new Donaldson Elementary School in the West Allegheny School District. We are located in Oakdale, Pennsylvania. We are a mostly suburban school district located about 15 miles west of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There are approximately 380 students in our building. Our class has 15 girls and 7 boys. In addition to our classroom studies, we have special classes on a 6-day rotation-Music, Art, Physical Education, Swimming, Computers and Library. We participate in many good Internet projects. We have a student teacher in our class this semester. His name is Mr. Shuck. He is from Duquesne University. We participated in the Signs of Autumn project earlier in the year. It has been a very cold and snowy winter here. We have had one snow day that we had to make up on Presidentsā Day. We have had many 2 hour delays because of the snowy and icy weather conditions. We are just finishing up our unit on Weather in science. We look forward to hearing about the signs of spring in your areas. [40:22N 80:32W] USA West Virginia, Colliers Colliers Elementary School, Mr. Bennet's third graders Our school is a k-4 primary school. We have 150 students in our school. We have two classrooms of each grade. Our class has 16 students this year. There are 8 girls and 8 boys. We are a writing school. We have written 4 stories so far. One was about our summer, another a mad scientist story, one about ourselves, and presently working on one about our pets. We are located in the northern panhandle of West Virginia. We are 50 miles west of Pittsburgh Our landscape is rolling hills. Our climate is cool in the winter and warm to hot in the summer. Our nearest river is the Ohio River. Our main industry is Weirton Steel. [40:17N 74:03W] USA New Jersey, Eatontown Harbor School, Ms. Greebel's students Hello from New Jersey. We are all anxiously awaiting the start of Spring. Our winter was very cold and snowy. We even had some days off because of the snow. The days are getting longer and the temperature has been getting warmer. It is suppposed to be in the 50s (F) over the weekend. The younger children in our school have even been out on the playground! We have been checking some of the trees by our school, but the buds have not appeared. We are also waiting to see our the first robin. [40:04N 74:12W] USA New Jersey, Brick Brick Community Primary Learning Center, Ms. MacDougall's students Our school has 720 kindergarten students. There are 35 science classes participating in this project and I have the pleasure of teaching all of them. We started our observations today in the school garden using our new magnifying glasses. All of the classes will contribute to a Signs of Spring weekly report. We are grateful that Nancy continues to facilitate this fantastic project. This kids are excited about telling children around the world about our spring changes. We will be submitting a weekly photograph of a lilac and forsythia bush to show seasonal changes. [39:32N 74:29W] USA New Jersey, Jackson Switlik Elementary School, Ms. Wardell's second graders Welcome to Signs of Spring. We are a second grade class with 22 students in Jackson, NJ. We are very fortunate to experience all four seasons. We are located near the Atlantic Ocean, and we are in between two major cities - New York and Philadelphia. Our class is eagerly awaiting Spring, and we are hoping that Punxsutawney Phil the Groundhog was wrong with his prediction. In our journals we wrote what Spring means...flowers blooming, warmer weather, no more SNOW, playing outside with our friends, planting gardens, green grass, bees and bugs, baseball, Spring break and buds on the trees. We will photograph our trees each week to see what changes occur. Happy Spring to all! [39:18N 85:13W] USA Indiana, Batesville St. Louis School, Ms. Bornemann's fourth graders We are fourth graders at St. Louis School. St. Louis School is a great place because we learn about Jesus. As a Catholic school, we go to church two times a week. This year we won the National Blue Ribbon Award. At our school we wear uniforms. In our school we have 450 kids in Kindergarten ö 8th grade. Batesville is in Southeastern Indiana. Batesville is between Indianapolis and Cincinnati, Ohio, on Interstate 74. Half of Batesville is in Ripley County and the other half is in Franklin County. In summer it is usually very warm or could get very hot. You could go swimming everyday since it is 80 to 90 degrees. In winter it is usually 20 to 30 degrees. We miss school sometimes because of snowfall about 5 to 6 days some year. If you think it is too cold just wait till tomorrow you will probably get your wish because Batesvilleās weather is always changing. Batesville is a small town of about 6,000 people. The main industry is Hillenbrand Industries. They make caskets and hospital beds. Many people in Indiana know refer to Batesville as Casket City. Batesville has many places to exercise like the YMCA and the Bee Active Gym. We have Public and Catholic schools in Batesville. Walking from school we can go to the public library, the Memorial Park, the Gibson Movie Theater, the hospital, and swimming pool. [39:02N 95:41W] USA Kansas, Topeka Pleasant Hill Elementary School, Ms. Seeger's fifth graders We are the Shining Seeger Crew from Pleasant Hill Elementary School in Topeka, Kansas. We have 14 students in our class. Our class looped from last year in 4th grade to 5th grade, and we have experienced this project before in 4th grade. Topeka is located in the Midwest region of the United States. Our weather has been unusual this winter. The temperatures were above average early in winter, and then they dropped. We have had lots of snow, ice, and frost this winter. There have been two snow days this year which is odd for our area. Please visit our Internet project Listening to Walls Talk. Here is a biopoem about spring. We decided to personify spring in our poem: Spring Shamrock green, freshly scented, lively with plants blooming, animals being born, warming up Child of winter Lover of fluorescent green, butterflies, and spring rains Who feels alive, free, powerful and in charge Who fears returning cold, snow, and ice Who would like to last until summer, looking stunning and elegant with flowers blossoming Resident of the world Spring [37:32N 97:15W] USA Kansas, Derby Park Hill Elementary School, Ms. Mayes's first graders We are a first grade class from Derby, Kansas. We have 23 students in our class. Our school's name is Park Hill Elementary. We are called the Huskies. We have around 380 students in our K-5 building. We love to read, do math, centers, PE and music, and go to library. Derby is located 10 miles south of Wichita, Kansas and we have about 18,000 people living in Derby. Wichita is called the Air Capital and has McConnell Air Base which is about 4 miles from Derby. We are looking forward to spring in Kansas. We are very lucky that living in Kansas we can see the changes of all the seasons. [36:42N 76:38W] USA Virginia, Suffolk Haley's Home School, Ms. Ziroli's 3rd grader We are a home school family. We use a very nature-based curriculum, taking much of our learning to and from out of doors. [34:13N 118:14W] USA California, La Crescenta Lincoln Elementary School, Ms. Goddard's second graders Hi, we are second graders from Lincoln Elementary School. We have 20 students in our class with 9 boys and 11 girls. There are four second grade classes at our school. We have 515 students in our school. Most of us come to school in cars. We do have some children who walk to school. We do use buses to bring us to school. We live in city of La Crescenta in the state of California. La Crescenta is in a valley between two mountains. There are about 16,968 people living here in our city. We have lots of beautiful trees. The weather is usually nice most of the year. We have bad rainstorms and sometimes lots of wind. In the summer it is really hot. We can cool off by going to the beach, which is nearby. We live about an hour away from Disneyland. We live about 13 minutes from downtown Los Angeles on a good day. We measure distance in time because there is so much traffic in Southern California. When there is a lot of traffic it takes longer to get anywhere. [33:33N 117:09W] USA California, Murrieta Buchanan Elementary School, Ms. Lumsden/Albright's kindergartners We live in Murrieta, California. We are in kindergarten. Some of the signs of spring that we are seeing are leaves growing on trees and flowers starting to bloom. Some of the students said that on their trees the leaves are still there. It has been rainy and cool this week. [32:51N 96:58W] USA Texas, Irving J. O. Schulze Elementary School, Ms. Butt's first graders Hello Friends and Partners! We are a first grade class in Irving, Texas, USA. Irving is located in the middle of a large metropolitan area (Dallas/Fort Worth) in a rolling prairie area of north central Texas. We have a moderate climate with hot summers, mild winters, and short autumns and springs. Summers usually have high temperatures in the 90's to low 100's Fahrenheit. Winter lows may sometimes dip into the 20's F, but usually will stay above freezing for most of the winter. We rarely ever get any snow or ice. However, we had a very beautiful snow on Valentine's Day. Some of us had never seen snow like that before! Since we rarely get any weather like that, we have very little special equipment to help clear the roads. The only equipment we have are some sanding trucks that pour sand on the icy highways and bridges. We have no special tires for our cars, trucks, or vans, no snow chains, no snow plows, and even our winter clothes are much lighter and cooler than most of you who live farther north than us. Irving is celebrated it's Centennial last year. Irving was founded in 1903. We have people of many different ethnic groups living here in Irving. Over 60 different languages are spoken by children in our school district. We have four high schools (grades 9-12), six middle schools (grades 6-8), 18 elementary schools (grades K-5), and 3 early childhood centers (grade Pre-K). Our school has 708 students. Our class is one of seven first grade classes. Eight of us are English as a Second Language (ESL) students and six of us are not ESL students. The languages spoken by children in our class are English, Spanish, and Vietnamese. We are waiting for Monarchs to return from Mexico. We are watching our tulip garden to see when our tulips bloom. Our tulips have emerged and are growing, but there are not any flowers yet, only leaves. When Monarchs arrive and tulips bloom, we know spring is arriving. Please visit us: Irving Independent School District, our class, and the City of Irving. [32:31N 94:46W] USA Texas, Longview Pine Tree Elementary School, Ms. Baker's second graders Hello from Longview, Texas. We are in Mrs. Baker's Second Grade class at Pine Tree Elementary School. Our class has 20 students, 11 girls and 9 boys. There are about 750 students on the elementary campus of first and second graders. We had a very mild winter. Our temperature ranged from a low of 35* to a high of 50* most days. We did have one or two really cold days! Snow fell in Longview on Valentineās Day! It was really pretty. It was on Saturday so we were able to play in it and build snowmen! One week later the high temperature was 61*. Today it is expected to get to 70°. We have a saying about Texas weather. ćIf you donāt like the weather now, wait a few minutes because it will change!ä Longview is located directly east of Dallas and west of Shreveport, La. We are located in the Piney Woods of East Texas. This name is appropriate because we have many pine trees in our area. As a matter of fact, our school district is named Pine Tree because it was started many years ago under a large pine tree. [29:37N 81:49W] USA Florida, Hollister The Children's Academy, Ms. Cadwallader's first graders We are located in North Florida. Our school is in the country and there is lots of room for outside play and exploring. It is still cold here. We are looking forward to spring. [31:50S 116:10E] WESTERN AUSTRALIA, Perth Hampton Park Primary School, Miss Anderson's third and fourth graders Hello Everyone! There are twenty four children in our Year Three/Four class here in Perth Western Australia. We have eleven Year Three Students and thirteen Year Four Students. While we are waiting for signs of Autumn to appear here in the southern hemisphere - it has been unbelievably hot and very summery over the last few months. We have been back at school for three weeks now - and the temperatures have soared to 41 degrees celcius - with many days over 35 degrees celcius. We can't wait for the cooler weather to begin. Some children in our class have swimming pools in their backyards - but most of the class go to the beach and the public swimming pool when it's hot. All of the children in our class have brothers and sisters at home, they love playing sports on the weekends like football, cricket, tennis, soccer, t-ball and golf! Their families enjoy taking them to fun places like 'Adventure World' - a place with lots of fun rides - and they enjoy travelling around to some of the lovely country towns we have in the south west of our State - like Albany and Mandurah. We have seen the Map of the World posted on the website - and all the red and yellow dots showing the schools joining in with this project. We are really looking forward to meeting other children around the world through this project - and would love to send email letters and pictures to other schools. We hope you're having a wonderful day - see you later! [38:20ŹS 176:00E] NEW ZEALAND, Auckland Bucklands Beach Primary School, Ms. Chilvers's fifth year students It is Autumn right now in Bucklands Beach Primary School. The school is called Bucklands Beach Primary because it is near a beach called Bucklands Beach. There are 296 pupils in our school. We have a pool and have just have had a family fun night. Our principal Mrs. Brown has been at our school for 2 years. Our old principal was called Mr. Aimes. We have 15 classes in our school but 3 are not being used. It is a small school but very friendly. We have quite a lot of teachers at our school. We start school at 8.50 am and finish at 3.00 pm. We also have a playground, a gigantic field and a lunch room where we order our lunch. 54:52N-38:20S | Firsts | Map | Quest | March index | Top of page