Oral Presentations Last Night

Students did a scavenger hunt in town to find out about the history, economy, and culture of the island. Then they developed creative presentations to share what they learned. We didn't have any fun...

Whale watching

.Imagine you're on a boat, it's rocking back and forth. The wind is splashing water on your face. You have been on this boat for 2 hours. You hear someone shout "Orcas at 2 o'clock!" You rush to the side of the boat, you see two black fins coming out of  water. As you keep watching you see more coming up out of the water. You see the white patches on the whale. You see more appear as they dance through the water. The naturalist tell you they are the T-77 pod. They are transient orca whales. They are not as common as residential whales. They disappear for a few minutes before returning. The naturalist explains how they have an erratic swimming pattern. They also tell you transient whales eat seals, sea lions, and other marine animals. To eat this, orcas  have large sharp teeth, while hump backs have baleen. You watch the whales come up more. They explain how they got the name killer whales. They got it by sailors seeing orcas attack other whales as the sailing. They called the, "killer of whales". As time passed they called them "killer whales".

On your way back from seeing the pods, you spot a few bold Eagles. The naturalist tell you they are common around the islands. You keep moving when you see stellar sea loins. They are only here a few months of the year. They are often referred to as the Grizzlies of the sea. After seeing the sea lions the guide/naturalist continued his trivia of random topics to entertain everyone on the boat. You arrive back at Friday harbor very pleased.

Allie B Alicia

Exploring at the Docks

After closing dinner and class sessions, we've been heading down to the dock with Mr. Davis to see what lurks after dark. Brooks bought a net from the hardware store which made catching critters easy and exciting. We pulled out shrimp, jellyfish, and we even got our first squid that Mr. Davis has ever seen in Friday Harbor. Even though kids are exhausted from the full days, they can't wait to explore into the night. We are having a great time!

Ms. B

Whale Museum Experience - Octavio & Daniela

     In the Whale Museum, both Octavio and I had a great experience. We learned that a grey whale scoops mud and filters it through its teeth to get its food, such as krill, or anything smaller than a basketball. Which means the spaces in between each layer of baleen -what whale teeth is made of- is thicker than a whale that only filters water. This also means that the trash at the bottom of the ocean may also go into the mouth which may cause death. We also learned about the family trees of the three different families of the local whales, which are the J Pods, the L Pods, and the K Pods. The one that is mostly around Friday Harbor is the J Pod. 

   We hope everyone else enjoyed the Whale Museum as much as we did.

    

                                                                                                                      ~ Octavio, Daniela

Our Cooking and Cleaning Experiences- Jesus and Petey

Not everyone has cooked yet, but we are excited to help cook because we like to cook and want to be helpful as much as possible. Other kids have cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner and enjoyed it because they like cooking and want to hear what other kids think about how they cook. Our cleaning experience was really cool because everyone who help clean-up volunteer. Two or three kids are assigned to do one thing; something a student might get assigned to are doing the dishes, wiping off the counter, and vacuuming. Kids even get let down to help clean because so many students want to help so much. Our AVID family thinks it's really important to keep our learning and eating environment clean because the owners of the American Legion let us use the hall every year for free; we are grateful and wish to keep using the American Legion Hall in the future.

Whale Watching Begins!

Another beautiful morning in the harbor. We're headed to find whales. 

Barcheck's Bike Ride

One of my favorite traditions is taking a small group of adventurous students out on a 6 mile bike ride loop that goes along the coast outside of Friday Harbor. The road rolls through beautiful trees and countryside. This isn't the easiest bike ride, but I hope that students who come with me see that the bike can take us just a bit farther than where we could've gone just by walking. We ended with ice cream on the harbor and then everyone seemed happy that they went on the ride.  

Ms. B

Tide Pools

      Today was awesome. We took a bus down to the tide pools down on the shore of the island. We arrived on the beach, and separated into groups to go look for sea animal and plants. As soon as we got down there, there wasn't much to see at first glance. But when we looked a little bit harder, we saw lots of amazing things. The tide pools are separated into zones, The splash zone, Upper Inter tidal Zone, Middle inter tidal zone, and the Lower inter tidal zone. Each of the zones has its own unique organisms, and they are pretty different.  We saw lots of mollusks, and small mussels, but also super big mussels. There was absolutely tons of kelp, algae and seaweed. All of that made the rocks super slippery. Barnacles covered pretty much every inch of the rocks, and they are super sharp. Crabs and Hermit Crabs were also plentiful. Some of the coolest things that we found were blood stars, red starfish that get about 5 inches in length. I found a moon Jelly, floating in the water. That was pretty cool to find. There were lots of cool organisms to see. It would have been cool to see a lot more. We loved going to the tide pools, and we hope we could go again sometime.

-Jonathan Brennan     -Jaime Antolin

American Legion

This program helps retired military people find a job and also gives back to their local community by helping them too. Our school and The American Legion have had a long friendly relationship. The American Legion right know is helping us by giving us the opportunity to have a place to do our school work and to have every meal. The view is amazing too. Every morning we walk into the American Legion we see this amazing view of the beautiful sea and some awesome boats and mountains.

-Perla and Jorge R.

Good Morning from Beautiful Friday Harbor

It's a beautiful, sunny morning in Friday Harbor.

Travel-Experience at Airport, Bus and Ferry

The plane experience was very surprising. The only thing we did not like is that we had to wake up really early. Getting to the airport, we did not take a long time at security and we did not have any big problems with our bags. On the plane we were really nervous because it was our first time riding on a plane but after we had gone up to the air, we didn't think it was as bad as we thought it would be. Also the landing was not that bad. Although you do get a tingly feeling in your stomach.
The bus ride was the longest bus ride we have ever taken. There was a lot of things to see as we got to Anacortes. We did take a break in our 2 hour drive and talked about a really big tree with Mr.Davis. Also before we had started our journey to Anacortes we had stopped to see the Space Needle. We learned it was 605 feet tall.
The ferry was the best part of our travel day. Once we had gotten to Anacortes, we got on a ferry to get to Friday Harbor. We got really great views and amazing pictures. Since we were on the ferry for a while, we got kind of bored and we started playing Loteria. After that we had started our week at Friday Harbor.