[Music] when I say the word garden what pops into your mind I imagine colorful flower and vegetable gardens But what if I add a different adjective to describe the noun garden Rain garden Are you imagining what a rain garden looks like I sure am I'm Mrs Defa and I can't wait to learn about rain gardens with all of you Today we will read two sources about rain gardens We will write about what we learned to share our knowledge with others As we read information we will paraphrase or quote from our sources A source is the text you read Paraphrase means to write about what you learn in your own words We will also practice inserting direct quotes Direct quotes are the author's actual words we want to use in our writing When we quote and paraphrase we always give credit to those sources to say thank you to those authors for their writing Online I discovered a website called Friends of the Rouge The Friends of the Rouge are everyday people like you and me They raise awareness about the need to clean up the Rouge River in southeast Michigan The Rouge River is 127 m long It begins in Oakland and Washington counties flows through Wayne County and joins the Detroit River An article that hooked my attention is titled Rain Gardens to the Rescue I was wondering what a rain garden is and the first heading in this article helped me as a reader The heading states what is a rain garden According to friends of the Rouge and the Sierra Club Michigan chapter a rain garden is a native plant garden designed to capture store and soak up rain water rather than have it run off into storm drains I want to quote that definition When I quote I use quotation marks to show off exactly what the author wrote I must remember where I found this information So let's copy the link to give credit to the author I'm going to read the rest of the section and highlight key words because I plan to paraphrase this content Reducing water flowing into storm drains helps reduce pollution in our local rivers and prevents flooding while providing food and habitat for pollinator insects butterflies birds and other wildlife In addition rain gardens beautify our yards and neighborhoods recharge our local groundwater clean water through the natural processes of the plants improve quality of life helps prevent neighborhood flooding by holding back storm water when it rains Encourage knowledge of the native plants of our region and their benefits Detroit may be eligible for green credit to apply against drainage fee attracts pollinators and beneficial insects that help gardens and farms to be more productive Serves as a tangible way to contribute to water protection efforts as a community Using only the highlighted text let's paraphrase what we read Friends of the Rouge and the Sierra Club Michigan chapter show how rain gardens help protect the environment's groundwater from pollution and flooding Rain gardens provide homes and food for wildlife especially insects that pollinate flowers Rain gardens provide a way for people like you and me to help keep our community's water clean So we know what a rain garden is but what goes into a rain garden To answer this question let's use this image titled recommended native plants These labeled photographs help us as readers to learn about the native plants that go into rain gardens Let's read and highlight the first paragraph These are the top 20 native Michigan plants used successfully in Washington County The first two rows should be planted on the sides of your rain garden where it is the driest The bottom three rows should be planted on the bottom of your rain garden where it is the wetest Using only the words we highlighted let's paraphrase A resource titled recommended native plants says rain gardens in southeast Michigan need plants on the sides of the garden to handle the driest areas such as which native plant would you use I added wild strawberry Let's write more The bottom of the rain garden where it's the wetest needs flowers like which native plant would you use I added blue flag irises Let's read our writing together According to Friends of the Rouge and the Sierra Club Michigan chapter a rain garden is a native plant garden designed to capture store and soak up rain water rather than have it run off into storm drains Friends of the Rouge and the Sierra Club Michigan chapter also show how rain gardens help protect the environment's groundwater from pollution and flooding Rain gardens provide homes and food for wildlife especially insects that pollinate flowers Rain gardens provide a way for people like you and me to help keep our communities water clean A resource titled recommended native plants says rain gardens in southeast Michigan need plants on the side of the garden to handle the driest area such as wild strawberry The bottom of the rain garden where it's the wetest needs flowers like blue flag irises Let's add a sentence to end our paragraph Rain gardens provide a colorful way we can help the water we need in our environment What do you think Maybe you have other ideas of what to add here As readers and writers share what you learned today about rain gardens Maybe you and the special people in your life will create your own rain garden to help the environment Thank you for joining us If you want more fun ways to practice literacy skills don't forget to subscribe to the Michigan Learning channel and be sure to check the description below for links to activity guides resources and more [Music] [Applause]