Response Skills: Paraphrasing And Summarizing Texts While Maintaining Meaning And Order (TEKS.ELA.6.6.D) Practice Test

Before our school had a community garden, the courtyard was mostly cracked concrete and puddles. A few sixth graders presented an idea at a student council meeting: turn the space into a small garden where classes could learn about plants. They collected sketches, emailed the principal, and asked the PTA for help. Some weekends, families showed up with shovels to pull up broken tiles. A science teacher marked off raised beds with tape so everyone could imagine where lettuce, herbs, and flowers might grow.

Work went slower than we hoped. One windstorm knocked over the new trellises, and we had to replant twice. Still, by spring, teams rotated watering, and the first sprouts pushed through. The cafeteria agreed to use whatever we harvested, and art classes painted signs for each bed. More neighbors stopped to peek through the fence and offered seeds. Now the council is drafting a plan to expand by two beds next year and add a compost bin, because the garden has become a place where our school learns, meets, and takes care of something together.

Each fall, thousands of birds pass over our town at night, guided by stars and moonlight. Bright city lights can confuse them, drawing birds toward windows where many are injured. Our sixth-grade science club wondered if a 'Lights Out' week would help. With permission, we asked residents to switch off unneeded lights after sunset. We set up simple observation stations before dawn outside three buildings with large windows and kept careful notes about any birds we found.

On the first two mornings, we recorded several window strikes where lights had been left on. By the end of the week, more people were participating, and the number of strikes dropped. We can't claim our small effort solved a big problem, but the change suggested that darker nights made the path safer. Next, we plan to share our data with the city and write to nearby businesses to ask them to dim decorative lighting during peak migration. Even small adjustments, added together, can guide travelers we rarely see but still affect.