Classroom Terrariums

[skabooya]

OMG I cant kill anything. I hate the thought. But i have no problem dismembering them once they are dead... go figure. My friends think im morbid. I cant be a vegetarian I love meat too much lol.

Nope she specifically said: no snakes, spiders, lizards, and fuzzy things that can crawl or jump out of the tank.

I was strongly considering a snake too. I think that would be very very neat for the kids. A corn snake or milk snake or something gentle and hardy. Heck I can even try to catch a garter snake from around here. Thats what my hubbys friends brother did. Hes had the snake for 5 years now and loves him.

[FIT BMX]

That really makes the animal list small.
I had a cousin that had a garter snake for about 3 or 4 moths, then it got out! They found it dead under the couch a couple weeks later.
The garter snakes are thick around here, I've pulled 13 or 14 out of my water garden this summer!!

[skabooya]

Wow thats a lot of snakes.

Well there is a person I am dealing with who is willing to donate some 'blueberry' shrimp and some hets for the tank If it goes through then YAY for the students. Shrimp are very interesting little animals. Sure they dont breed true but Im not picky. Their behaviours are what is interesting. They aprently dont live long either BUT they breed like mad! So we shall see how this goes.

[FIT BMX]

Shrimp would be great!!!!

[skabooya]

So a a few members on another forum have very kindly donated some plants as well as blueberry shrimp and hets. The kids are in LOVE. We shall see how things go over the next few days to see if things thrive or are only doing...ok.
What surprised me was the principal was more excited over the package today compared to the kids lol.

I am going to get my special needs student to make some posters about the shrimp and hets to put over the tank. I am going to print off some facts and pictures and she can cut and paste, arrange and decorate however she wants too.

[FIT BMX]

THAT'S GREAT!!!!

Maybe you can talk the principal into getting the class a 100 gallon or bigger tank for next year. Or maybe next year you can get a Axolotl, They are really cool!

[skabooya]

HA! wouldnt that be nice. The school budget in BC is GONE thanks to government cutbacks. Its actually pretty bad. SSA's (student support assistants) help learning and behaviour disabled kids of various kinds. For every 3 kids like this in our class we need at least one SSA except when we have one who is severe in which case that student has their own SSA to help them for the entire day because they need it. Well, the government said ... meh they dont need the help. Teachers can do it. So SSA's hours and the SSA's themselves were cutback. I had a class with 7 kids on IEP when I was supposted to only have 3 and I had no SSA. Do you know how hard it is to direct a class of 33 with 7 on a completely different totally adapted curriculum and with no help? Which brings me to another thing. The government removed the lock on class sizes, so we could have 60 kids in a classroom and the govt says its fine. The highest I have seen so far was 37 in one class. They also took our ability to argue about this by removing it from our collective agreement and from the barganing table. We are also not allowed to change wording in the collective agreement when we are at the barganing table. We took this to the supreme court of Canada and they judged for us and against the govt. The govts response... Dont change a thing. So, we went back to the supreme court, they got pissed off at the govt and has given them a time limit to comply with the ruling. Time is running out. At that time, we have things planned for us teachers to fight back so we can fight for these kids.

Sorry for the rant. We are currently doing a work to rule in BC because of all this bull. Stage 2 will be comming up very soon depending on what the government does. Then stage 3...Walk out.

What I want to do is petition to get a LARGE tank for the classroom (that wont happen for a few years unfortunately) and have a bog/swamp thing going in it. I would put in the foam floating islands and the works so it has some emmersed and some submersed veg. Not to mention all the wonderful little critters that can be kept.

We do have tanks for salmon raising, but I need to be trained for that. And until our "strike" is over, we are not allowed to do things like that.

If I had the room however, and all of this was over I am almost positive the principal would go for it, but hes not the one I get the final say from. He can just give me permission to keep one. Hes not the money handler.

Either way, I need to remember my camera for more pictures

[FIT BMX]

sorry for the slow response.
The US and Canada's schools both have BIG problems!!!
My mom and sister both are going to school to be teachers, so I know a lot about this.
It's so sad what is happening to these kids, they just don't have a chance it seems like the government is trying to crush them.
Sometimes I don't know what to do, but just hope and pray.



Some pics of the shrimp would be great!!!

[skabooya]

Yea I keep forgetting to bring my camera. GRRR! hoping for monday Gotta remember to bring camera for monday lol

Well, now because of our strike to fight the government for kids rights they want to dock our pay 15% because we are not doing some "essential service" WHICH in our collective agreement states that what we are not doing now during our strike IS NOT considered essential service. So, to combat this in order to dock our pay they are putting out an order to make report cards and erronus things like that an essential service. They have also docked more hours from students who need help. So my student who needs a constant aid is left alone for a few hours at a time. I am going to rip someones face off on monday about this because its just wrong. This girl has no fine motor skills, no toiletry skills and GOD FORBID she gets sick and has an accident like she did Thursday. Thank goodness she had an SSA there with her then, but if she didnt, she would have been standing there throwing up and covered in fecal matter for who knows how long because I am not going to clean her up. I could get in HUGE trouble for that. Teachers are now expected to administer insulin and keep blood glucose records up to date and regular as well as admisister various other drugs to students who need them. WTF!

[FIT BMX]

You have way to much going on to mess with taking photos of shrimp, don't worry about it on my account.

I know it will all workout just give it some time, and try not to rip off to many faces.

[FIT BMX]

How are you, and the tank doing?

[skabooya]

Doing pretty good. I managed to get some pics the other day. I just need to post them. This is the first time in a few days I have been online. lol. My camera is downstairs right now and Im just taking a break from marking :P

The plants are now adjusted and starting to grow. There was a lot of die off but now things are going well. We dont see the inhabitants very often at all, but when they make an appearance WOW the kids swarm the area. Ive only been able to count 3 shrimp lately and 1 het. I used to find 3 but now I only see 1. However, I must say that they are very well camoflauged in there.

[FIT BMX]

I'm happy to hear your plants are doing good! I'm bet the shrimp are just hiding, I hope.
As long as the kids are having fun, that's what matters most.

[FIT BMX]

How are you the plants, and shrimp doing?

And I found this great video on BC!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPFZhIUH4Qs

[skabooya]

MAN Ive been busy lately. I didnt leave the school yesterday until 6pm.
Anyways, there are 2 male hets left in the tank so no babies
There are a couple of shrimp in the tank but its pretty hard to see them. Although I had a couple of students rip out a bunch of plants from the tank to let the light in. Funny story too. I was changing the schedule board when I heard the students screaming. I turned around to them waving the plants trying to get something off. I asked what they were doing! In a disgusted voice they told me the shrimp were hanging onto the plants and wouldn't let go. LOL. too funny.
I am seriously considering setting up my 20 gal in my home office as a terrarium/viv/palu whatever. This way I have a stash of fish/shrimp... mostly shrimp to re-stock the classroom tank when need be. Fish in classroom tanks dont last long for some reason. I don't know if it is the water (which I always test; seems fine) or perhaps cleaning chemicals getting into the water or maybe the kids sticking their grubby fingers in the tank when im not there.
I need to find time to bring a couple of gallons of water from home and do a massive water change on the tank. The water is so tea stained from the wood you can barely look into the tank. I kind of like the natural look, but everyone else says it looks dirty. I even had one person say that I was abusing the animals in the tank because it was filthy. "Look how brown the water is!" I had to explain tannins leaching from wood. lol

I did take pictures, I really did. They are still on my camera from a couple of months ago *rolls eyes* I will try and get them up tonight. I also need to get some new shots of the tank.