Second graders in Fort Wayne, Indiana, started the Climate Test garden project with a question. "When will our tulips grow?" Good question. Good start. Scientific experiments always start with a question. Let's see how they worked to build a good prediction.

"Before we could make good predictions, we needed to do some research," shared Christine Michael, the Math/Science specialist. Here's what they did: Reviewed the names of the seasons. Learned which months belonged in each season. Made a sentence strip into a 'year' and folded it into 12 parts. Labeled each part with the name of a month. Colored them according to the season.

Focusing in on Spring
The students knew enough about tulips to know they grow in or near spring. Now, they could make reasonable predictions.

After planting their bulbs, students were got their chance to declare their predictions. Everyone got color-coded stickers; a GREEN one for their emerge date and a RED one for their bloom date. The stickers were placed along the timeline.

The timeline is now posted in the hallway. It is also a modified graph! Can you tell which dates were the most popular?