Nature Games 2

Another activity we'd do at camp was an "Around the World". I would have the students envision that the basketball court was a map of the world, and ask them to move around to different places where they might find certain things (Where they were born, where they would find an elephant, where they'd be in a desert, etc.) I loved seeing all the different answers! After the elephant question, the kids were in Asia, Africa, India, the LA Zoo...all across the globe :)

I liked this activity because it not only got the kids thinking about different places around the world, and gave opportunity to discuss different ecosystems they might not have learned a lot about, but it got them thinking spatially, about where places would be in relation to each other.

The game I saw children enjoying the most was a game showing different adaptations animals might use in the wild to get resources or avoid being caught by predators. We had a blindfolded student in the middle of the group, with an object, representing a resource, at their feet. During a round we'd point at students to approach the center and try to get the object without being detected. The blindfolded person had to point where they heard noise in order to get people out. The people had to return to their spots with the object in order to be successful. I saw so many different techniques. I saw distraction by throwing twigs in other places (even nearer other players in order to get them out) or when a player only moved when another player was making noise. We witnessed competition when several people reached the center and back to their original locations undetected, but since there was only one object, only one player was successful. We got to see techniques from the point of view of the sneaky prey and from the point of view of the keen predator. We got to discuss why an animal might not be able to use their sight to detect food or dangers. Honestly, watching how the kids reacted to the parameters of this game was super informative to me!

Nature Games 1

A friend asked for new ideas for her environmental education program. As I was reminiscing about a few projects and games I've done in the past, I realized I had never mentioned them on here. Considering what this blog was made for, that's a little bit of a major oversight on my part. Sometimes you don't think of your old stand-bys because, well, they're not news to you. So, a little time-travel magic and we'll talk about some of the games I pulled out at camp to fill in some time

I had a game that I adapted from a book of wildlife games. It was a big hit with the kids! It was sort of like "Sharks and Minnows", but with a twist. One child would be selected to be "it", this was the predator. The rest of the children were "prey". I had suggestions of everything from fox and rabbits to komodo dragon and water buffalo! The prey then had to run across the playing field, avoiding being caught (tagged) by the predator, to gather the food that was on the other side (we used balls to represent food.) They then had to return the food to their families waiting at home (the starting line.) There were a few safeties, hula hoops that represented bushes the prey could hide in. At the end of a round, any prey that was caught enabled the predator population to increase (a tagged "prey" child was an additional "predator" in the next round.) I found this worked best when each predator was only allowed one prey per round. Any predator that was not able to catch a prey in a round was returned to the "prey" side (representing a predator who died, and a subsequent increase in the prey population since they were able to get home safely with food and thus reproduce.)

After a few rounds this very neatly displayed the relationship between predator and prey population sizes. As the predator population rose, the prey population declined, forcing a decline in predator population, which allowed for a rise in the prey population and so on. By the end of the game, any of the children could describe this relationship to you, based solely on their observations. Plus they kept begging me for more rounds after I said time was up :)

Teen Nature

Today I went to a coming of age nature program that my friend runs. It was beautiful weather, I could hardly believe it's December (my friend was in sandals!)

We had a couple cool projects. For one we collected pine boughs for wreaths. Some of the teens had a hard time getting engaged in the activity, but for the most part they were very enthusiastic and creative. I think this was because the adults in the program gave them a lot of leeway to express themselves (read "be silly"). This might have helped generate creative energy which could then be channeled, rather than try to keep them on task and wind up in a low energy state.

We were careful not to collect too many boughs from any given tree. However, not a lot of our boughs were used in the actual project, so next week we are going to discuss other ways to use them, out of respect for the trees.

Our other project was to create wind chimes out of Japanese knotweed (an invasive plant that one could argue resembles bamboo).

See the distinct sections along the stalk?

One girl (who gained my immediate interest based on her fervor) decide she wanted to turn it into a flute. She spent the entire project working and whittling trying to figure out how. She was so excited when I got my flute to work, proving it was possible. By the end of the day she had a little whistle, and was very keen to tell me everything that she tried that helped or hindered her effort. I love the spark in that one!

Now I have a half-finished wreath to accomplish. Maybe the little lady and the young gentleman will help me after school tomorrow...

Bird Calls

My friend, who is a wonderful woman as well as a talented cartoonist, has created a handy chart for remembering bird calls, with absolutely charming illustrations. I can't wait to get one on my wall. Check it out here.

I love her style!

Cones!

The Four Winds lesson this month was on cones. We described and discussed different cones, and played cone-related matching games (such as types of cones to the branches of the trees they came from). We spiced up the lesson this time by bringing pine cone necklaces for everyone (using the cones collected in previous posts.)

(See the young gentleman in the middle?)

We also helped illustrate conifer tree facts by taking the kids outside and having them show us the circumference and height of the largest trees with their armspans. This was a lesson for us in group coordination!

Measuring an 'average' wingspan 

Stretching out our arms to the fullest to reach the length of the tallest redwood tree

At the end of the lesson we sent each kid home with a note for their parents. The note suggested they help the kids spread peanut butter on the cone on their necklace, roll it in birdseed, hang it by the thread, and watch to see if any birds come to have a snack!

If you want to see more pictures, you can visit the blog the classroom teacher keeps: she wrote an entry on our visit.

Summer Camp Tricks 3

Continued from Summer Camp Tricks 1 and 2


Discovery

Children learn best when they don't realize they're being taught. Lead them right up to the conclusion, talk them all the way around it, but get them to pronounce it in their own words before you're done. 

One of my jobs at camp was to mentor high-schoolers who wish to work with children in the future. I let them run some of the projects I had designed for the kids. Once I explained it to them I tried to give them slack reigns so I could see how they would choose to run the lesson. One common hang-up that I noticed was when they presented the activity to the children, they would give all the information at once, including the overall concept the activity was designed to teach. "By the end of this lesson you kids will be able to see..." I had to work on this with many of my high-schoolers. Just telling them once that this is not the best way to present the activity wasn't enough, they would continue to do their introductions this way. Possibly because this is the way I presented the activities to them. "See, this teaches the students [such] in [such and such a] way." I couldn't show them or tell them how to teach, they needed to learn to teach just as much as the students needed to learn.


Watching my high schoolers I really noticed the trap, and how easy it is to fall in: we can't get caught in the idea that we're giving students information. We all know we are super smart, but the kids will respond better and retain more if they learn to draw the conclusions themselves. If they feel empowered, it is something they will remember.

Snake Mountain Trees

I didn't want to bog down the story in my last post with too many details, but some things we saw are too interesting to not discuss.

For example, I didn't provide some of the quick ID points for the Eastern Hemlock I mentioned. The needles come off the twig bilaterally, like the wings of an airplane, rather than completely around the twig as you might see in a spruce. Each needle has two white lines on the underside, and if you look closely you will see a tiny stem on each (which will help distinguish it from a fir). And there you have it!

Another part of the day that was very interesting to me was the number of American beech trees we saw. Beeches in this area have a couple of problems that are taking them down. One is an insect, beech scale, which leaves white residue. I didn't see any evidence of this, but I did see signs of beech bark disease, a black fungus.

See how the usually smooth bark is marred?

Still, most of the trees I saw on the mountain were pretty healthy, which is refreshing. We even saw some beeches that were very large, I was almost fooled on the ID because I just didn't expect a beech to be that big. Did I mention I love beeches? It wrenches my heart to see them sickly, so this stand (mostly) made me smile.

When we saw more wind-downed trees, we discussed how the hollows left in the ground stay for a long, long time, with a bump on one side where the root mass used to be. Later we saw a hollow without the tree (it had probably been cleared, but still) and we got to discuss "what happened here?"

I can really see the effect I've been having on the little lady. When her mom asked her what she knew about a tree, she went over to sniff it. Quoth Mom: "Nature lady might be able to make IDs by smelling things, you've got to work your way up to that!" I appreciate her method though, gathering all the data she can to make an informed statement :)