7th Graders Explore Long Island

(May 2007) Riverhead is bordered by the Peconic River and the Great Peconic Bay on the south and the Long Island Sound on the north. Its unique location and glacial origin offers Riverhead students a rich scientific learning experience. Seventh graders recently used a day at the beach to enhance their studies in the classroom.

The field trip involved students in exploring the varied geography of Long Island and helped them relate these differences to the forces that created and still shape the Island today. Science, math, social studies and English standards were addressed as students traveled from the rocky North Shore beaches on the Sound through the farmlands of the North Fork, across the Peconic River to the sandy South Shore beaches of Ponquogue. At each stop, students worked in groups and rotated through different activities designed to exemplify the unique features of that particular beach.

Teachers from each discipline led students through their assignments. Firsthand learning experiences on the beaches helped students put the material learned in their 7th grade geology unit into perspective. Other subjects were integrated into the trip as well. In math, students graphed the data collected at the sound and ocean. In English class, students wrote letters based on their reflections from the trip, and, in social studies, students were asked which location they would have picked to settle if they were Native American scouts discovering Long Island for the first time.

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