Bring the swamp
to school!

IN-SCHOOL PROGRAMS

McGee's Swamp Tours can now bring the swamp to your school! Immerse your students in the mysteries and wonders of the Atchafalaya Swamp in your own classroom. Hands-on programs provide students with valuable connections to their own communities and ecosystems. Used in combination with a field trip to McGee's, these standards-based, classroom experiences provide students and teachers with the ultimate programs.

GROW WITH THE FLOW

Watch landforms develop before your very eyes with our interactive erosion table, sponsored by Cox Communications.

Students will:

Learn how Louisiana was created
Experience how altering the environment can lead to both positive and negative outcomes
Gain a greater understanding about the importance of water
Explore various adaptations that living things undergo
Acknowledge that they can make choices to reduce their impact on the environment

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Louisiana Student Standards

KINDERGARTEN

K-ESS2-1:

Performance Expectation: Use and share observations of local weather conditions to describe patterns over time.

K-ESS2-2:

Performance Expectation: Construct an argument supported by evidence for how plants and animals (including humans) can change the environment to meet their needs.

K-ESS3-1:

Performance Expectation: Use a model to represent the relationship between the needs of different plants or animals (including humans) and the places they live.

K-ESS3-3:

Performance Expectation: Communicate solutions that will reduce the impact of humans on the land, water, air and/or other living things in the local environment.

FIRST GRADE

THOUGH THERE ARE NO STANDARDS THAT CURRENTLY ALIGN WITH THE FIRST GRADE CURRICULUM, THE PROGRAM DOES REINFORCE PREVIOUS STANDARDS AND INTRODUCES FUTURE CONCEPTS.

SECOND GRADE

2-ESS1-1

Performance Expectation: Use information from several sources to provide evidence that Earth events can occur quickly or slowly.

2-ESS2-1

Performance Expectations: Compare multiple solutions designed to slow or prevent wind or water from changing the shape of the land.

2-ESS2-2

Performance Expectations: Develop a model to represent the shapes and kinds of land and bodies of water in an area.

2-ESS2-3

Performance Expectations: Obtain and communicate information to identify where water is found on Earth and that it can be solid or liquid.

THIRD GRADE

3-LS4-4

Make a claim about the merit of a solution to a problem caused when the environment changes and the types of plants and animals that live there may change.

3-ESS3-1

Make a claim about the merit of a design solution that reduces the impact of a weather-related hazard.

3-ESS2-2

Obtain and combine information to describe climates in different regions around the world.

FOURTH GRADE

4-ESS2-1

Plan and conduct investigations on the effects of water, ice, wind, and vegetation on the relative rate of weathering and erosion.

4-ESS2-2

Analyze and interpret data from maps to describe patterns of Earth’s features.

4-ESS2-3

Ask questions that can be investigated and predict reasonable outcomes about how living things affect the physical characteristics of their environment.

4-ESS3-2

Generate and compare multiple solutions to reduce the impacts of natural earth processes on humans

FIFTH GRADE

5-ESS2-1

Develop a model using an example to describe ways the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and/or atmosphere interact

5-ESS3-1

Generate and compare multiple solutions about ways individual communities can use science to protect the earth’s resources and environment.

SWAMP SUPERPOWERS!

Learn about the special adaptations or "powers" of the plants and animals (including humans) that call the Atchafalaya Basin home through interactions with LIVE animals facilitated by a McGee's Interpreter.

Students will:

Get up close and personal with a few residents of the Atchafalaya Basin.
Explore the benefits and challenges living things face in swamp environments.
Gain understanding about the connectivity of ecological systems.

Louisiana Student Standards

KINDERGARTEN

K-LS1-1

Use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive.

K-ESS2-2

Construct an argument supported by evidence for how plants and animals (including humans) can change the environment to meet their needs.

K-ESS3-1

Use a model to represent the relationship the relationship between the needs of different plants or animals (including humans) and the places they live.

K-ESS3-3

Communicate solutions that will reduce the impact of humans on the land, water, air, and/or other living things in the local environment.

FIRST GRADE

1-LS1-1

Use tools and materials to design a solution to a human problem by mimicking how plants and/or animals use their external parts to help them survive, grow, and meet their needs.

1-LS1-2

Read grade-appropriate text and use media to determine patterns in behavior parents and offspring that help offspring survive.

SECOND GRADE

2-LS2-2

Develop a simple model that mimics the function of an animal in dispersing seeds or pollinating plants.

THIRD GRADE

3-LS1-1

Develop models to describe that organisms have unique and diverse life cycles, but all have common birth, growth, reproduction, and death.

3-LS2-1

Construct and support an argument that some animals form groups that help members survive.

3-LS3-2

Use evidence to support the explanation that traits can be influence by the environment.

3-LS4-2

Use evidence to construct an explanation for how the variations in characteristics among individuals of the same species may provide advantages in surviving, finding mates, and reproducing.

3-LS4-3

Construct and support an argument with evidence that in a particular habitat some organisms can survive well, and some cannot survive at all.

3-LS4-4

Make a claim about the merit of a solution to a problem caused when the environment changes and the types of plants and animals the live there may change.

FOURTH GRADE

4-LS1-1

Construct an argument that plants, and animals have internal structures that function to support survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction.

4-LS1-2

Construct an explanation to describe how animals receive different types of information through their senses, process the information in their brains, and respond to information in different ways.

4-ESS2-3

Ask questions that can be investigated and predict reasonable outcomes about how living things affect the physical characteristics of their environment.

FIFTH GRADE

5-LS2-1

Develop a model to describe the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment.

5-ESS3-1

Generate and compare multiple solutions about ways individual communities can use science to protect the Earth’s resources and environment.

CONTACT OUR EDUCATIONAL COORDINATOR

Bring the swamp to school!

IN-SCHOOL PROGRAMS

Louisiana Student Standards

Louisiana Student Standards

Bring the swamp
to school!