This year’s theme is the Layers of Life! Every year I choose my theme as I sit on the beach in LBI (Long Beach Island). It is the best place to think! This past summer I sat there and looked out into the ocean and began to wonder about all that lies above and below the water. I saw in my mind’s eye the many layers of life that live below the water, bringing to mind the layers of the ocean. Then I gazed into the sky and thought about the layers of our atmosphere and the life that can live in some of those layers.

That brought me to want to explore this theme during this school year! We begin the year with the layers of the Earth. We then explore caves, which go into the “crust” layer of the Earth. After that we will explore the layers of the ocean, which hold fascinating forms of life. We will then go back onto the crust and explore the seven continents that float on top of the tectonic plates, which are always changing and moving. We will also explore the land forms, mostly the many tall mountains which dot our Earth.

In the Spring, we will explore the layers of the atmosphere and the life forms that use our airways to travel and migrate. Some birds can go quite high into the higher layers of our atmosphere when they travel!

We will then explore space, mainly exploring the “Goldilocks Zones,” where it is “just right” for life to exist in certain parts of space. We will end our year discovering more about space exploration, as that is a current topic and one which is becoming quite fascinating!