The Squirrel

As an environmental educator, being outside with children is always a bit like stepping into the unknown. When I take groups of children outside, I generally have an idea of what I’d like to teach or what learning opportunities I’d like to provide. But with nature as a catalyst for learning, I never quite know where the path will lead. Nature, even in our urban ecosystem, is always changing, often unpredictable, and never disappointing. 

Much of my teaching time and students’ learning time these days takes place indoors. They are often immersed in technology and disconnected from nature. So when I have the opportunity to take children outside I am always reminded of why it is such important work.

My goals for outdoor work with children:

• children will make a connection with the natural world
• they will engage in physical challenges that help develop gross and fine motor skills and body confidence 
• they will engage in social emotional experiences with peers
• their wonder and curiosity will lead them to learn something more about ecosystems, animals, and plants
• children will direct their own learning and have fun

 

One day last week I took fourth graders outside to play in the fresh snow. I was hoping to find some interesting animal tracks so we could talk about animals that share our space. One student wondered if we might find bugs anywhere, or where they go when there’s snow on the ground. We talked about potential hiding places and decided to investigate the bark on a large boxelder tree. As a few students walked with me toward the tree, one student told me they’d seen a dead squirrel under that tree. What happened next is a beautiful example of emergent nature curriculum at its best. In the children’s words…

Oh, look! There’s a dead squirrel.

I wonder what happened.

Look, there’s blood under its head and on its neck.

(Students look around the area)

Maybe it fell out of the tree.

Maybe another squirrel fought with it.

Maybe a predator got it. A raptor.

We’re by the street. Maybe it got hit by a car.

There’s a piece of bread over here. Maybe it was poisoned.

Or maybe another squirrel tried to get the bread from it.

 

After discussing possible causes of death, the children turned their attention to other things they know about death – rituals surrounding burial and funerals.

 

We should bury it and have a funeral.

We can’t dig, the ground is frozen.

We can just cover it with snow and make a tombstone.

Yeah, then people won’t disturb it.

 

The children made a snow mound on top of the squirrel, found a piece of cardboard to make a tombstone, and wrote “RIP” in the snow on top of the mound.

 

We should play some music and say some words. Do you have music on your phone?

(I took out my phone and searched for funeral music. “Amazing Grace” began playing.)

Let’s say some things about the squirrel.

He was a troublemaker, always digging in trash cans.

He stole food and lit a forest fire.

Let’s pray.

We hope you go to squirrel heaven.

We are sorry you got hit by a car.

Rest in peace.

We will miss you.

The somber and curious mood somehow turned light and cheerful during the course of their ceremony. Children who were initially concerned and sad ended up smiling and laughing together. They gave each other hugs. They left the squirrel’s grave and went on to play in the snow.

 

As adults, we are so often afraid to expose children to death in nature or to talk about death at all with them. We rush them past dead animals. We tell them not to look or touch. We try to control their environments and keep them from experiencing sadness or hardship. But what if we take a different approach?

 

I didn’t avoid the topic of death with these children. I didn’t tell them about my spiritual beliefs or what I think happens after we die. I held space for them to consider an animal’s death, to process their feelings, to participate in rituals they created together for this squirrel, and to be a community of children in a way that is different from their classroom communities. I was a supportive presence while they talked about their ideas. I followed their lead. I connected with those children. 

 

So what do children learn when you take them outside? On that day, this group of children learned that death is a natural part of every living creature’s life cycle. They learned from each other potential causes of this squirrel’s death. They learned that we all have different ideas about death and funerals. They communicated their ideas respectfully and listened to each other. They worked together to bury the squirrel. They felt sadness and worked through that sadness. They laughed and they hugged. I got out of the way and let their learning unfold. 

Romeo and the Teenager

When my daughter was little, she looked up to me. She looked at me with those sparkling blue eyes and I saw curiosity and wonder, respect, and love. She's fifteen now and most of the looks I get make me wonder if I've suddenly sprouted antlers or a second head. 

Last night we went for a short hike to return a snail to its natural habitat (where we found it) after hosting it in a terrarium during the pandemic. Romeo, said snail, provided us with hours of entertainment and education. Did you know that snails love carrots and will leave an orange poop trail on the glass? Or that they sometimes pull themselves into their shells and seem dried up and dead, until one day they emerge and are sliding slowly across the glass and you are SO grateful you didn’t dump them out with the compost? This dormant state during hot, dry periods is called estivation. With the pandemic restrictions loosening and people getting back out into the world it kind of feels like we’ve all been estivating for months. I’m grateful I wasn’t thrown out with the compost, which is what my daughter would most likely do with me if she could.

Anyway, we took the snail back, to live its free and wild life. During our walk, as I’ve done her entire life, I shared some of my extensive knowledge about the plants and animals we encountered. She used to appreciate this. She used to ask questions and we’d have excited conversations about what we were seeing together. No more. Now it’s exasperated looks, one word retorts (and “word” is generous), or silence as she taps away at her phone. “You might be glad one day to know that you can identify and eat plantain and lamb’s quarters. Or that wood nettle is delicious after you cook it to remove the sting. Or that you can dig up burdock and eat the root or use it medicinally to lower blood sugar and treat colds and sore throats, among other ailments.” Well, she wasn’t glad, not today. She was annoyed. Even when I told her she might need this information after the zombie apocalypse or some other worse pandemic comes along. 

She DID, however, in her own sullen teenage way, manage to notice some pretty incredible things out in nature, even while complaining about being hot and itchy. I even saw her eyes light up and detected the hint of a smile here and there. She noticed a wasp on a railing. Then watched as it raised its wings and wondered if it was protecting something. Suddenly two more wasps appeared and went into a crevice where we decided there must be a nest. She noticed, and caught, tiny toadlets in the grass. She pointed out monarch butterflies, an egg on a milkweed leaf, a slug, dragonflies, and a scorpionfly. She noticed a muskrat in the water and watched as it swam ashore and ate reeds at the water’s edge. We crossed a trail and she was the first to see a doe and her two fawns in the golden light just after sunset.

I took pictures and tried to keep my comments, my joy, to myself because what’s the use in sharing it if it only annoys your teenager? For a little while I caught glimpses of the kid she used to be. I miss that kid.

From all outward appearances, my teenager hates me. Can’t stand the sight of me, the sound of my voice, my very existence. And that’s a hard thing for a mother to take. I know I’m not alone. I’ve had many women give me hugs or share kind words or look at me with genuine understanding and empathy. 

I was feeling pretty down as we returned Romeo, not because he was going home but because it felt like I was losing another piece of her childhood, another piece of my heart. She nestled him tenderly into a hole in a log, a spot she chose because it offered some protection and perhaps comfort. Is that what she’s looking for, I wonder? Is she pulling away from me, pushing me away from her, testing my love with all her might, somehow knowing that I will always be her true home, her place of comfort and protection? That’s what I choose to believe. That’s what Romeo taught me. Well, that and to always look for signs of life before giving up entirely.

"Birds Can Save the World"

I recently attended a lecture titled "Birds Can Save the World," given by Dr. John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. As an urban birder, teacher, and naturalist, I was intrigued by the title. I have my own thoughts about the value and benefits of birding but was curious to hear from an expert in the field.

Dr. Fitzpatrick talked about how the earth is currently on the cusp. We are at this point in natural history where big changes are rapidly occurring worldwide. With a population currently at around 7.6 billion people, the earth's landscape, climate, and ecosystems are changing. But how do birds fit into this?

• Birds are a model of how nature works. Think about life cycles, habitats, and predator-prey relationships. Everything is connected. 
• Birds are environmental indicators. When a population of birds suddenly plummets, we have to consider the cause. What has changed? How will the decrease in birds impact everything else around that species?
• With migration, birds are truly the heartbeat of global annual cycles. Their movement across the globe has been tracked by weather radar as well as data from banding and citizen science reports.
• Finally, birds are nature's voice to humans. How many of us in the Midwest hear that early chickadee singing "fee-bee" on a cold January morning and instantly anticipate spring?

Dr. Fitzpatrick also talked a bit about a great citizen science project called eBird that is run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. With eBird you simply take note of the bird species in your surroundings, submit your findings through the website, and become part of a global birding research community.

How does all this relate to Twin Cities Urban Nature? Birds can be found in every city, every habitat, and nearly every place on earth. Birds are a simple, but often overlooked, link between human and wild. And they are a great way to get children interested in nature and wildlife!

Last year I took a small group of preschoolers out on a birding adventure. We gathered supplies such as binoculars, clipboards, pencils and markers, field guides, and a story book and set out to look for birds. 

I asked the children where we could find some birds:

• in the trees
• maybe by those bird feeders
• let's just sit and listen 
• in the sky

We decided to walk through the woods, toward the prairie and the nature center where the bird feeders are hung. Along the way, children looked into the trees, listened for birds, and used their binoculars.

At the edge of the prairie they spotted some HUGE birds... wild turkeys!

We quietly watched the turkeys for a while and noticed that we usually see them on the ground, not flying like songbirds.

Next, we made our way toward the bird feeders and sat down to watch. The children saw a lot of activity and many different kinds of birds. They used a field guide to identify what they were seeing and did some observational drawing.

After talking about what they had seen and heard and reading a story together, it was time to play. Young children naturally learn through play. Without any prompting from me, the children suddenly "became" birds. They stretched out their arms like wings and "flew" through the air, chasing each other and laughing. I thought about how good it must feel, for children and birds, to feel the breeze on their faces and such freedom of movement.

So in the context of children and urban nature, how can birds save the world? Well, I think the joy that is apparent in the above photo speaks volumes. If we allow children to connect with the wild through play, follow their curiosity, pay attention to their surroundings, and give them time to just be in the outdoors, birds can be a catalyst for learning more about the natural world. When we help them make those connections we are preparing them to be stewards for healthy ecosystems in a world that can support all of us, human and wild. 

Tips for Urban Birding With Children

• Put out some bird feeders. 
• Watch what happens in and around a nearby tree. 
• Notice gulls, sparrows, or other birds in urban parking lots. 
• Listen for the sounds of robins, chickadees, crows, and other common urban birds. 
• Have children draw or describe what they see.
• Get a field guide, identify a bird, and read more about that species.
• Make a list of all the birds you see. Note differences in species at different times of year.
• Become citizen scientists and report your findings on eBird.

The Obstacle Course

Deciding where to place materials

What can you do with a pile of logs, scrap lumber, and stumps in an empty parking lot? Well, if you're a child with a great imagination and the freedom to choose how to use the available materials, the options are endless. This group of children decided to make an obstacle course.

Working together

To begin, they worked together to haul the logs and stumps into the parking lot. Then they tried different layouts and arrangements of materials.They used the board as a ramp, propped up on the edge of a narrow log and placed a couple of bigger logs next to the ramp so they would have something to jump over. They had a starting line and a finish line as well.

"We need to add mud."

As they began to take turns testing the obstacle course, the children decided they needed a "post" at the starting line. They wanted to stand a log up on end, but it wouldn’t stay. Someone noticed small puddles and mud nearby and organized a team to gather mud to use as glue. They eventually stood the log up, packed "glue" around the base, and balanced it. Then they pushed another log up next to it to hold it in place while the mud dried.

"Look how far I can jump!"

During the process of creating an obstacle course, the children worked through many challenges. First, many of the logs were heavy so they had to work together to carry them or roll them in order to move them. Then they had to decide where to put things and explain their ideas to each other when there were disagreements. They also had to test the course and make adjustments so that it was safe and stable to use.

"We built this!"

This was done at a nature preschool but what city sidewalk or backyard wouldn't provide a perfect setting for a similar activity? What if we, as teachers and parents, let children choose how to use materials rather than tell them how materials are to be used? What if we resist the urge to "correct" a child's usage of a particular toy, or provide them with alternative toys such as rocks, logs, pinecones, or cardboard and just watch? I wonder what would happen...

Learning With Children in Nature

I've been thinking a lot lately about how to help other teachers and parents of young children use the limitless resources of the outdoors to help children learn. Anyone, ANYONE, can take children outside. The natural world is out there, everywhere. My particular passion is urban environmental education because I grew up, was educated, raised my own children, and have taught in an urban environment. 

In April 2016 I had the privilege of presenting my work with my colleagues at Dodge Nature Preschool's annual Learning Conference. We talked about our work with children outdoors, how to use the natural world to spark their curiosity and engage sustained learning, and how to prepare to get children outside. I am sharing the handout we created, in the hopes that you find it useful in your experiences with children outdoors.

Learning With Children in Nature

Pay attention, be astonished, tell about it… -Mary Oliver

Dodge Nature Preschool Learning Conference, April 2016

Kari Ryg, Brenda Jerde, and Dani Porter Born

Small Moments, Big Opportunities in Your Work With Children

·      Nature is everywhere! Every site, urban/suburban/rural has some nature somewhere… wind, rain, sunshine, insects, birds, a plant growing in a sidewalk crack – look for it!

·      Relationships and collaboration: Be present and pay attention. It’s easy to miss those small moments if you are not looking for them. The learning is happening whether you notice it or not. Sharing an experience with a child is powerful for teachers and children.

·      Be prepared physically. Not every teacher will carry a backpack full of gear when taking children outside. We find it helpful to have at the very least a phone or camera to document moments (photo, video, text). If you can have things like paper and pencil, ziplock bags or a bucket for collection, scissors, rope or yarn, small hand lenses, fold-out field guides – wonderful! If not, think of ways you’ll be able to remember what the children were interested in and curious about so that you can support and extend that learning later.

·      You don’t need to be an expert about everything outdoors! In fact, you can’t be. But you can tell children that you don’t know something and then figure out how to learn it together. Every encounter in the natural world brings new experiences and new questions. Even if you’re revisiting the same places. Nature isn’t static.

Now what? How do I start?

·      Go outside.

·      Observe the children. Read their cues. Four little bodies gathered around something, heads down, means something interesting is happening.

·      Get close. Get right in there with them as a partner sharing in their discovery.

·      Ask questions! Promote inquiry and avoid the urge to give away the answers.

·      Document and reflect when you can. You will be amazed at what you learn later when you engage in the simple process of writing down an experience or conversation.

·      Plan for and revisit experiences and discoveries with the children to deepen or expand on their ideas.

Questions to Guide Inquiry

·      What does it look like? Or remind you of? Have you seen that before? What do you think it is?

·      How does it smell? Feel? Taste (when appropriate)? Sound?

·      How does it work? Is it changing?

·      What made that happen?

·      How is it like or different from something else?

·      How is it connected to something else?

·      How do you know?

·      How can we find out more?

Life Skills

One of my worries for children today is that as parents we do too much for them. We are so protective and indulgent that our kids are not developing character traits that will make them successful adults. 

I listened to author Paul Tough talk about his book How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character. Tough argues that qualities such as perseverance, self control, and curiosity are key to children's success in school and later in life. Similarly, author and psychologist Angela Duckworth writes about success being a combination of passion and perseverance. So as parents and educators, how do we help develop such characteristics in children? I'd say it starts early and it starts with backing off. 

Allowing children some freedom to explore, to ask questions, and try to solve problems is the process of inquiry. Young children have questions about everything. Sometimes we just want to give them the answers and move on. But what if we didn't answer their questions? What if we gave them just enough to follow their own interests and try to figure things out on their own? Would that lead to perseverance? Would that motivate and incite a passion to learn? 

Along with the inquiry process being useful in the discussion around success is the idea of risk. There are levels of risk involved with nearly everything we do. We, as adults, whether we know it or not, are constantly assessing potential risk in our environment. It's a survival instinct coded in our DNA. Think of Darwin, evolution, and natural selection over the course of biologic history. Our instinct is to survive and to be sure that our offspring survive.

It seems to me that we've gone way overboard with protecting our children when we schedule every moment of their days, constantly watch to anticipate their every need or possible misstep, keep them indoors and away from perceived danger, answer every question, and never let them take any risks at all. 

To illustrate what I consider acceptable risk and the inquiry process for young children, I share a piece I wrote for parents of one of my preschool classes. That preschool is set at a nature center and the example involves ice on a creek. It could just as well involve ice in a parking lot, near a storm sewer, or in an urban park.

Creek Ice and Risk

Our small group hikes at preschool offer a multitude of opportunities for young children to engage in inquiry and for teachers to observe and document what the children are learning. On a small group hike this winter, I spent time with five children as they suddenly veered off-trail and headed to the creek to look at the ice. On that day they noticed many changes and made a lot of observations around ice and water. Here are some of the things they noticed:

Child: This ice is safe – I hit it with my stick and it didn’t break.

Child: Look, there’s ice UNDER ice here.

Teacher: What does that look like, that shape in the ice?

Child: It looks like circles.

Child: Yeah, or bubbles.

Teacher: Yes! Air bubbles trapped in the ice. What happens if you poke at them with your sticks?

Children: They break! That ice isn’t so strong! Let’s call that bubble ice!

Child: The bubble ice is easy to break, and there’s more ice under it.

Child: This looks like a skating pond.

Child: The ice isn’t thick in places where it’s black. I can see water under there.

Teacher: Yes, when I jump on the ice, watch that black spot.

Child: The water moved when you jumped!

Child: Hey, there’s slush on top of the ice here.

Child: Look guys, more water!

Child: This ice looks like it can break because it’s dark.

Child: Look, there’s sticks here. Like a bridge.

The children spent about half an hour along the edges of the creek testing ice, breaking through weak spots with their sticks, and finding safe places to step on the ice and on branches to get to the other side. I think it’s important to note that for young children, the inquiry process doesn’t always start with a question they can verbalize. The process starts with curiosity, something they notice and want to explore. Sometimes they ask questions. Sometimes teachers ask questions to nudge them toward their own discoveries. Often children compare what they notice to something else, something familiar. In this instance the children learned about different states of water, solid and liquid. They learned that there are layers in ice. They learned about looking closely at the ice and testing it for safety. They learned that they can use their brains and their bodies to get themselves safely across the creek. What makes it all so meaningful is that I didn’t tell them any of that. I followed them to the creek, made sure they were staying safe while they explored, asked a few questions, and just let them learn. These children are well on their way to success.