Bears or Meteorologists?

In November, 2001, we heard a news report that said the bears had gone into hibernation early, which meant that their instincts told them it would be a long, cold, and snowy winter. However, we heard on the news as well that the meteorologists were predicting a warm, dry winter. Our kindergarten decided to research and keep track of the winter weather to see which one was right.

First we made predictions and we were even. Just as many children thought the bears would be right as meteorologists. Then we asked the children's parents. A few more thought the bears would be right.

Our deciding criteria was temperature and snow. If it was -10° C or colder, we counted that as bear weather. If it was snowing heavily (not just a few flakes), we counted that as bear weather.

Our original intent was to keep track until the first day of spring, but it was still so cold that we kept going until we heard on the news that the bears were out of hibernation. Here is a photo of our tally.

As you can see from the graph, the meteorologists eventually pulled ahead. So, we concluded that for this year, the meteorologists made the best forecast.

Here are photos of the classroom Grizzly bear that went into hibernating in a cave under a table just as we started to record our information. When we went to get Gus out from his cave, we discovered that "he" was not a male, but a female, because there was a little bear cub in the cave too! We renamed Gus to Gussie!

We named the little bear cub "Cubbie!" What a great surprise!

Submitted by Mrs. Vaage's Kindergarten Class