Square of Life

Rebecca Creek Elementary School, Spring Branch, Texas

Final Report – First and Second Grade Gifted and Talented Class

Spring Branch, Texas is approximately 30 miles north of San Antonio, in the Texas Hill Country.  The Hill Country has rocky, caliche clay soil and hillsides dotted with massive Escarpment Oaks, and Mountain Cedar (juniper).  We have mild winters and hot summers.

We compared our findings with those of W.F. Killip Elementary School in Flagstaff, Arizona and Our Lady of Perpetual Succour in Sydney, NSW, Australia.

We live in a warm climate similar to the desert, but not as hot or dry.  Our climate is humid.  We like comparing ourselves to the climate of Australia, an island.  We all have mild winters and warm summers.  Only Flagstaff gets snow in the winter.  Since Australia is below the equator, it has seasons the opposite of ours.  We are in springtime; they are in the fall of their year.

OUR FINDINGS:  All of our areas have trees.  None of our squares had bushes.  We all had wild grasses, spiders, and ants.

OUR CONCLUSIONS:  Grasses, spiders, and ants are found almost all over the world.  Even the Arctic regions have tundra grasses.  We had different trees because we live in different climates.  Our Texas oaks could not survive in the desert.  Since elm and apple trees are not native to Arizona, we think they must receive water from another means.

Lizards and snakes are found in all or our areas normally, because they do not need a lot of water to live.  Weeds are everywhere, even in the desert.  They only grow there when an unusual rain comes.  Arizona has mountains, and our part of Texas has hills.  We all have sandy soil because thousands of years ago, we were all under the sea.

Click here to see a sheet that compares what we found in the places we studied.