Lone Pine Students’ Discovery Leads to a Teaching Collaboration

An exciting collaboration between Jackie May's Lone Pine second grade class and the Johnson Nature Center was created after adventurous students found parts of a animal skeleton at recess. Students Jude Bernardi, Ari Richmond, Seth Richmond and Calin Vazquez were exploring the woods at the border of the playground and discovered a handful of bones, including a skull. Several students then dashed into the woods and came out with more and more bones. They had enough pieces of bone to put together some of a spinal cord and parts of animal legs. The discovery led to many questions about what kind of bones were found, to what animal or animals they belonged, how old they were, etc. so May contacted the Johnson Nature Center for guidance on how to identify the bones. 

As a result of the discovery and the students’ curiosity, Johnson Center naturalists Cass Arsenault and Cathy Wesley developed a two-hour learning experience on skulls and signs of wildlife called The Story of a Skeleton. The program split the class into two groups. One group went outside to show the naturalists where the bones were found and to look for other evidence of animal life. The other group stayed in the classroom to touch several other skulls and learn how to use tools and observation to identify them. At the end of the lesson, the naturalists revealed to the class that the bones were that of a deer. Students were then able to spread out the bones on a deer skeleton diagram. Lone Pine’s other second grade teachers revealed their students had also found bones in the area and would benefit from the lessons. The Nature Center naturalists returned so all Lone Pine second grade students could have a similar experience.

This collaboration is an excellent example of experiential learning, a Bloomfield Hills Schools initiative. Lead Naturalist Cass Arsenault commented, “May created a classroom environment of student-driven inquiry learning by taking students' discovery of a skeleton into weeks-long investigations & wonderings. The impacts of this learning approach, which was also project-based learning, increases science achievement in elementary schools and improves social and emotional learning.” The second grade students were instrumental in creating this new lesson. May commented, “It was a very exciting experience for us!”