School Yard Field Study

First grade students carefully gather prey snails and look for other creatures that live underneath the wood such as ants, spiders, roly-polys, and termites.

This is a small garden snail. Wolfsnails eat these and small slugs.

This small wolfsnail was wedged in the rim of a discarded bottle cap along with two garden snails. One first grade girl found 3 very small wolfsails during our field study on Thursday.

Students watch the snails after our snail-gathering adventure.

First graders at St. Therese Catholic School have been helping me care for and learn more about wolfsnails. I brought a large wolfsnail to school last week after my children found one at home. I knew that all of our students would want to see a live one because Sarah Campbell had visited our school last year to share her book Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator with students during an author visit.

This time, we were able to read the book and watch a live wolfsnail in action. On Tuesday, the wolfsnail was busy hunting and eating small, garden snails for most of the day. I didn't have many more garden snails left, so I took the first grade class outside to look for some in the school yard. We looked under rubber tires on the playground, old planks up against the back of the gym, cement blocks in the grass, and a few rocks--no snails! Finally, we found a huge colony of snails under a wood pile behind the cafeteria. Wow! There were so many there that we gathered a handful.

The bright and keen eyes of two first graders found another, small wolfsnail and an empty wolfsnail shell. They are keeping the small wolfsnail in their classroom for study and observation. On Thursday, we went back out to the wood pile for more prey snails and found 3 more small wolfsnails. I wonder what other amazing creatures and plants surround our school and exist side by side with us as we learn each day?

While all students at St. Therese have recently visited the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, last week's wolfsnail study was a perfect reminder that there are many opportunities to learn about nature, ecosystems, and the environment around our own school yard. This experience has me thinking about some future possibilities to do just that. Stay tuned!