Students in the 2nd grade are currently studying ecosystems in science class. Both Sandie's and Peale's classes started the unit with defining what is a habitat and visited their very own habitat, the GSFS Tree Lab, to understand the big idea that there are many kinds of animals and they need certain things to live and grow. Students then researched a couple of animals, including learning with the Costa Rican pen pals about one that is native to Costa Rica. Teaching Associate Julia helped illustrate the lessons through cool classroom experiments that simulated animal body coverings such as blubber.

Now the 2nd grade students are learning about the scientific process even more by partnering up with Penn's outreach program Project BioEyes to study the life cycle of zebrafish, their habitat, and how they are very similar to humans. In small groups, students have a small tank of fish to breed for embryos and are using microscopes, pipettes, and petri dishes to observe them as they hatch and develop then record what they observe - like true scientists.