Explayration

New "Simple" Dichotomous Key

2014-07-21T13:52:00.003-04:00

I made a new, improved simple key for tree identification. It's geared to narrow down some of the common types of trees in Vermont, in a simple, kid-friendly way. Print off a copy, try it out, and let me know what you think! If you have trouble with it, let me know and I can help you out.

Then, once you get good at using the simple dichotomous key, you can continue to improve you tree identification skills with a more detailed key. There are many available in book form and online, I would suggest trying a few out to see what style works best for you.

Happy identifying!
~Lisa

Solarfest Workshop

2014-07-07T14:30:00.000-04:00

Hi all!
I'll be doing a tree identifcation workshop at Solarfest (July 18th-20th 2014). Come on out for some great music and environmental education. There's tons of workshops for kids and adults!
http://www.solarfest.org/

Animal Tracks

2014-03-25T19:13:00.002-04:00

The other day while walking in the woods I stumbled across an area completely covered with complex patterns of animal tracks. The conditions were perfect to see the tracks, since the older snow had hardened, from exposure to sunlight and then re-freezing, and a fresh dusting had just fallen the night before. You should have seen me bounding around in knee-deep snow chasing after the new tracks I saw!

I saw many MANY snowshoe hare tracks. I could tell this is what they were by looking at the pattern of the tracks. Hares have much larger back feet than front feet. When they hop, their front feet land together and then their back feet land IN FRONT of the front feet. So the hare in the picture below is hopping to the left.

This hare is hopping toward us.

I could tell it was a hare and not a rabbit based on the size - hares are bigger! The rear foot of a rabbit can be from 1-3 inches long, where the hare can be 3-6 inches long.

The other really cool thing tracks can show you is what the animals did while they were going about their business. In the above picture you see a hare track that leads to a spot where the hare stayed for a little while (see how there is a big spot where the snow was packed down). What was the hare doing? I can't say for sure, but I know it spent some time here before continuing on.

I saw more than just hare tracks, I saw human tracks, bird tracks, dog tracks, and skiier tracks as well. Some tracks I wasn't able to identify, such as the ones below. I do know they are some sort of rodent because I can see the tail dragging between tracks!

There is a quarter for scale.

These rodent tracks end at this tree, so the
rodent's home must be under the snow here.

Due to the size of this next track, and the fact that there are little claw indentations, I say that it is a sort of weasel. If I'd had a book on me at the time then I might have been able to narrow it down further.

A weasel moves in a bounding pattern. This means that when the weasel leaps its front feet land first, then its back feet land in the same track as the front feet before it launches forward again.

They can get really good distance!

As I continued walking, I saw another track that seemed to appear out of nowhere. At first all I saw was another hare track, but suddenly a short, much smaller hare track appeared beside it. Then it vanished again!

Until I looked closer!

A baby hare was following an adult hare, hopping in the adult hare's tracks!

The last type of track I saw that day showed a walking pattern. If only I'd seen a porcupine track! Then I'd have seen all 4 types of track patterns - walking, hopping, bounding, and waddling.

See how the track is almost single-file? That's characteristic of a walking animal.

Because of the 4 toes and arrow-head like foot pad, I'd say that this track is canine.
Due to the size, I'd say fox.

But that was not the end of my tracking experience. The next day we went out to a different part of same natural area and found these beauties!

I put myself in for scale.

Based on size and surrounding habitat, my best guess is that these were made by a young Tyrannosaurus Rex. However, I am not well-versed in palentology, so I will have to do more digging to determine which dinosaur made these prints.

Next time you're out walking in the snow, what do you notice about your own tracks? Can you tell which ones are yours from the tread on your shoes? If you jump, or run, or turn around does that change how your track looks? I'd love to know what you find!

Giant Swallowtail Butterfly

2013-08-05T21:05:00.000-04:00

I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of this beautiful butterfly while at work in Shelburne, VT recently. The species is "Giant Swallowtail" which is fitting since it is the largest butterfly in the U.S. The wingspan can be about 4-6 inches! I find this butterfly striking due to the big, black patches on its wings and the large spoon-shaped tips to its wings. For comparison, the Tiger Swallowtail, which is a species more common in this area, has vertical stripes of black on yellow wings.

This is an exciting siting because this species is very rare in Vermont. They appear to be coming north into our area in recent years. It's also just exciting to see a butterfly this big, especially for kids. The children I was with were very enthusiastic, happy to sit there and watch wherever it flitted.

*NOTE* Butterflies can be attracted to an area based on the types of plants they like to eat. If you are planning a butterfly garden, it's probably best to stick with plants that are native to the area. This is because plants that come from other places might not have animals to eat it and keep it from taking over. Even if you only plant it in your garden, it can spread to nearby areas and keep going from there. Species that do this are labeled "invasive" and can make it harder for native plants to grow.

Hypotheses

2013-04-14T17:25:00.002-04:00

Today we biked to a little natural area by the Winooski River, and then let the Little Lady run about to see what she could discover. This is my favorite part, when we let the scientific discoveries come naturally! We wound up discovering many things we couldn't explain right away, so we had to use our powers of observation to form and test hypotheses. For the record, the way the Little Lady defined a hypothesis is an "educated guess", so that means it is based on the information we found, rather than just an off-the-cuff guess.

The first thing we found was some beaver damage on a tree. We made the educated guess that it was beaver damage since we were next to a river and we happen to know beavers live nearby. The beaver hadn't felled the tree, but just nibbled on it. The beaver might have done this to get a snack. They only eat the layer of a tree just beneath the bark (the cambium), not the main wood. Another reason for gnawing this tree might have been to file their teeth. Beavers teeth never stop growing, like our fingernails, but they don't have nail clippers!

Other animals create similar damage. This picture is actually porcupine damage.
(I didn't have my camera today, so I'm using this picture I took earlier.)

We also found some fire damage. The Little Lady was concerned about our hypotheses for this, because "hypotheses must be testable." She's right of course, but we discussed how you can test a hypothesis through research, rather than experimentation. One way to do this would be to ask the people who manage the natural area. However, while we were there we used our powers of observation to see if we could make our hypothesis stronger, or disprove particular ideas. For example: since we didn't find a lightning strike, we don't think it was naturally caused. It might have been a controlled burn by people who are experts in that field.

The biggest part of the adventure was spent studying water current in the river. It was a completely self-designed experiment by the Little Lady herself. She threw a stick and a hollow reed into the river to try to see if the hollow one would get waterlogged and sink faster. They were swept downstream too quickly to tell that time, but then something else happened. She threw a tiny piece of reed very close to the bank, and it started moving backward! Lucky we had a friend with us today who is an experienced canoe paddler. He told us about how directly downstream from a point where something, like a rock or log, juts into the river, the steam will create an eddy behind the point. In an eddy the water moves upstream because of the faster water moving in the main stream channel. This difference in current means that sometimes at the edge of an eddy you can see tiny whirlpools.

Image borrowed from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation website

We saw waterfowl in the river; a pair of Canada geese and two pairs of black ducks. We also heard birds. The Little Lady identified the crow call. I tried to point out the red-winged blackbird call, but there was also a black-and-white warbler calling, and she kept thinking I was referring to their squeeky-wheel sounding call. We also heard a mourning dove. I'll have to come up with a better system for incorporating bird calls into my lessons now that I'm getting better at them (I've been practicing!)

The best part of today, for me, is that I had no plan for this outing, I was just thinking a quick bike ride to the end of the road and back. You really never know what you're going to find to learn from when you walk out your front door! That's the amazing part about working with kids in nature: you can quite literally never run out of new things to learn about. Who knows what the next post will explore!

Spring Walk

2013-03-10T10:03:00.000-04:00

I am certainly getting geared up for spring and summer, so get ready to bring your kids out for some fun times and natural education! Now that spring is springing make sure to check here (and on Facebook) for events. As it is I've been having some adventures of my own. The other week we got a dusting of snow which was just perfect for tracks. I saw these, anybody know who they belong to? Comment if you do!

And this bird's nest. I'm not sure of the answer yet, but I have my top guys and gals on it!

Last but not least, I was mesmerized by this little stream of meltwater cutting through the ice. I love the way it back-tracks on its own path, making a perfect Z. This shows a great example of how moving water erodes its surroundings, and how the surroundings affect the movement of water. I also really liked seeing the movement of the sediment on the bottom, how it is deposited by the water on the upstream side, and then picked up and carried along with the current on the downstream side.

Hope to see you all soon in the woods!

Woodpecker Rescue

2012-12-21T17:30:00.001-05:00

One of my Environmental Science students arrived at school Tuesday morning with an unusual package for me. In it was what I believe to be a downy woodpecker who had crashed into a window. He was relatively motionless, but still alive and breathing. We noticed that it looked as if it had hurt its neck pretty badly.

I called several local licensed wildlife rehabilitators, to no avail (I can't blame them, it was the middle of a work day!) Then I decided to call VINS (Vermont Institute of Natural Science) which is located in Queechee, VT. I know that they have connections to help rehabilitate many animals, and are especially famous for their raptors (you can go visit the owls, eagles, and other birds of prey at their nature center!) so I figured they could at least give me advice.

They did better than that! They arranged a transport to get the bird to them so it could get the help it needed, and told me what to do in order to keep the bird comfortable while we waited. I was supposed to keep the bird in a small box, lined with a towel or pillowcase (a pillowcase is better for a woodpecker since they can get their beaks stuck in the loops in a towel.) The box should be kept in a quiet, dark place. When I told them the bird was starting to act more lively, they suggested I open the box outside and wait for 20-30 minutes to see if the bird would be well enough to go back into the wild on its own. In our case, the bird hopped out of the box, but then did not have the energy to go anywhere. It still needed help, so we sent it on the transport to VINS.

Today at around 2pm when I hadn't yet called to check on the bird, VINS called me! I am so pleased with how easy it was to get help from them, and how nice they were to me and how much they care about our wildlife here in Vermont. If you ever have a chance to visit their nature center with your kids, it is well worth the trip. Especially if you go to the Montshire Museum of Science the same day! This is exactly what my friend (of Lunches Fit For a Kid) and I did one Saturday this summer. To give you an idea what it's like, I'll attach some of those photos here.

First, the science museum:

A Rube Goldberg-like machine

Part of the outside play area

Playing with air

And the Nature Center:

She showed us this bird in flight!

Screech owl. They have such an interesting call (we got to hear it!)

Barn owl. So beautiful!

Our national icon

A sculpture that shows how a birds wings move as it flies
(if you aren't standing on it!)

View from the bridge over the nearby Queechee Gorge

Colchester Camp

2012-08-03T15:59:00.000-04:00

This week I ran a "From the Ground Up" program in Colchester. The themes were similar to the one I ran in Milton last month, but this program was different based on the places we were able to hike, the particular interests of the kids involved, and the things we saw. For example, in this camp we discussed some orienteering and even measured our individual pace length for measuring distances in the woods.

On our way out of the woods we found some hula hoops abandoned on the playground

We spent the first two days at one site, talking about soil, groundwater, bedrock, plants, trees, some animals, and (of course) playing games. Then the third and fourth days we were at a second site where we had access to a different type of forest as well as a tiny part of Colchester bog (I posed about this site before, read about it here.) We saw several carnivorous pitcher plants, as well as cotton grass and peat moss, plants very specific to bog environments. We also found a plant we all recognized very easily. I painstakingly identified, and was the first to eat and confirm, wild blueberries! Once we were sure, we all got to chow down. There were other berries around, so we were all careful to notice the difference and only pick the right ones.

Picking blueberries

These children really picked up on tree identification, which I appreciated because it's one of my favorite parts to talk about. After only one day teaching different types of trees, the next day they came in pointing out ones they remembered. "Look, there's a white pine. And that one's a hemlock!" I barely had to use the dichotomous key with them. But I wanted them to see how to use one, and they really found it interesting.

My new, improved dichotomous key. Now with more trees!

Identifying a moose (striped) maple with the dichotomous key.

The distinct striped bark and big, three-lobed leaves of the moose maple.

As when I was teaching camp in California, the kids' favorite game to play was a game teaching strategies animals might use in the wild to avoid being caught by predators (or to catch their prey.) These kids decided to call it "Snake Eye" since snakes rely on other senses besides sight, such as hearing and scent, since their eyes are not always very strong. In the game, one player is blindfolded and has to "catch" others trying to sneak up on them only using their hearing.

Listening...

Nope, not there...

Ahh, that's the ticket!

Listening...

Sneaking...

Contrary to the way this photo looks, it was actually taken

moments before she caught him.

We played this game in various places so we could see how the terrain affected the strategies each person used. We also discussed real-world applications of these strategies for animals.

I got some great photos of the students demonstrating a principle during our astronomy lesson on the last day. We discussed how since the moon takes 28 days to rotate on its axis as well as 28 days to revolve around the Earth, the same side is always facing the Earth. As we watch the phases of the moon over a month, we are seeing one day happen on that side of the moon.

The pillow is to show the side of the moon facing us is denser than the other

Rotating and revolving, moon around Earth, Earth around sun.

Switching up the roles to give everyone a turn. We were all very dizzy!

Drawing our own constellations on a star map

Still a favorite of all the kids, I brought my pet baby corn snake for everyone to learn about and choose to touch or hold (or not.) Everyone in this group was really excited to hold Ned.

And now for the Ned glamour shots:

Today a girl said to me "This is the best week of my life!" (apparently not only because of nature camp, but because she gets to go to the drive-in movies over the weekend.) And that right there is what keeps me doing the work I do!

Bat Rescue

2012-07-10T11:40:00.002-04:00

I found myself in a unique situation recently: driving down the highway in 90 degree weather with no air conditioning and a bat in a box on the floor of my passenger side.

As a precursor to this story: I have training in how to deal with bats, I worked with them through the Vermont Fish and Wildlife department. Bats have a high risk of carrying rabies, which is very dangerous to humans. This is one of those "do not try at home" situations. If you come in contact with a bat, do not let anyone handle it*.

Now, back to the story.

We had found the bat baking in the sun on the pavement on our way back from lunch. I could tell from a glance that it was severely dehydrated, based on the appearance of the membrane on its wings. The first important step in any such situation is to protect yourself. We happened to be near some campus medical buildings, so I grabbed a few pairs of nitrile gloves. Being careful not to touch the bat directly, even with the gloves, I coaxed it onto a piece of cardboard and moved it out of the sun. Then, when I dribbled a small puddle of water near the bat's face, we got to see it quickly start lapping up the water like a very, very small kitten.

I made a few phone calls and found a veterinarian that deals with wildlife. That brings us back to where we started; transporting Bartleby to the vet. I named the bat Bartleby, even though I am still not 100% sure he is male. It just seemed to suit 'him'.

When I arrived one of the first questions the vet asked was about the risk of rabies exposure. I was proud to be able to tell him that nobody had direct contact with Bartleby since I became responsible for it, not even me! This made things a lot easier, and a lot safer for Bartleby since they didn't have to worry that he was spreading diseases.

They say that bats don't always respond very well to rehabilitation, but we gave it our best shot! The vet started by feeding him a sugar, vitamin, and water solution to help with the starvation and dehydration.

Bartleby lapped it right up, must have been delicious...to a starving bat

Then they offered Bartleby some mealworms and crickets, which he refused. We figured part of the problem there might have been stress from so much human exposure. Sure enough, the vet left him alone overnight and he ate in the morning. I had to leave, but I knew I was leaving Bartleby in excellent hands.

The vet had his rabies shots, but this towel helped him not risk it while handling Bartleby.

In recent times bat populations have been in trouble, largely due to the white nose fungus but also to some unknown complications. Researchers are working to gather information on these secondary problems. Bartleby did not exhibit signs of whitenose. If we can figure out why Bartleby was struggling, we might understand better how to help the bat populations overall.

*In you find yourself in contact with a wild animal, you can contact the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department at (802) 241-3700, and they may be able to give you instruction on how to deal with your wildlife situation.

Milton Camp

2012-06-30T12:05:00.000-04:00

We had an amazing week! I ran a "From the Ground Up" program in Milton, and we learned and explored and played all over the park. As the name (and previous version of the program) suggests, we started out on the first day talking about soil, geology, and hydrology, worked up to plants and trees, then animals, then weather and astronomy. We looked at how each builds on the foundations provided by the other aspects of the natural world.

We climbed a few trees that blocked the trail

The tidbits that stuck with the children during this week made me smile. For example, after discussing soil layers the first day, all week any leaves were called O layer and any bare soil was the A layer. "Look Lisa, we're walking on the A layer!"

Someone dug this trench and so we were able to see soil layers!

This group's creativity astounded me. I taught them the vocab word "snag" (Remember? A favorite of the little lady's.) Then we reached a fork in the trail, I asked them to "hang a right," and they countered with "don't you mean snag a right?" And when I asked them not to touch something, like an animal that's just minding its own business, they said "Yeah, we should leaf it alone!"

They also liked to call the puddles we passed "frog mansions." I loved that. We spooked a frog into the water, and then found it under the mud. It was amazing, the frog stayed stock-still, even when we were pushing it through the water. It was firmly dedicated to pretending to be a rock. I hadn't seen that before!

They all loved to be able to identify and use jewelweed, because it's so useful if you get a cut, sting, or poison ivy exposure in the woods. Each of them was able to identify it by the end of the second day.

Rubbing jewelweed on a mosquito bite for relief

I had planned on spending most of the time outside, and then some weather happened. Thankfully we had some activities that were better suited to indoors, such as astronomy. I had a map of the stars visible in summer in Vermont for each of them. They used it to design their own constellations that they could actually find in the night sky!

After this activity, one of the girls drew her own star map

and asked ME to design constellations for it.

I also have a secret weapon for making rainy days run smoother, his name is Ned.

Ned is my personal pet, I just got him this year (he's probably only two years old!) When I asked each of the kids what their favorite part of the week was, they each said, without hesitation, "Holding Ned!"

Another favorite activity was playing "Star-Nosed Mole." While we played a lot of games and activities this week, the kids asked to play a few rounds of this game every day! One girl really loved the game because she was "really into worms." I've never heard that one before, but, whatever floats your boat!

Look at how smug that worm is, safe from the blind mole (as long as he's quiet!)

The group dynamic really affects the way a lesson goes. I always have a lesson plan, but I stay very fluid so if the kids show particular interests then that's what the lesson will become. For example, we spent a good chunk of time discussing wild edible foods. One of the kids even taught me that you can make a dessert out of the seed pods of timothy grass! We found a lot of wood sorrel, which looks like clovers only has heart-shaped leaves and tastes a bit lemony. We also saw a lot of strawberry plants (with no fruit yet) and blackberries!

The whole week was full of special discoveries and hypotheses:

We saw the difference between sapwood and heartwood as displayed

where the sap leaked out of this white pine when it was cut.

We smelled wintergreeny "sweet" (black) birch

(and tasted it too!)

We saw this GIANT snail!

(close-up)

Other good finds include a beaver stump near the swamp, some insects with unbelievable coloration, and many, many red efts!

Milton Reconnaissance

2012-06-23T10:23:00.001-04:00

The other day my friend (author of Lunches Fit For a Kid) came with me to investigate the trails at the park in Milton, so that I'll know where to go during my summer camp next week. It is a very interesting place, and you'll see much more of it in the coming week I'm sure. Lots of different trees to talk about, ferns galore, and even some wildlife :)

Like this guy

We saw a few different American Toads (like that guy.) Common misconception: toads ARE frogs. We like to make the distinction that toads are more terrestrial, and they have drier, bumpy skin, but there is no difference according to the scientific family tree. They also don't have warts: their skin is supposed to be like that. The bumpiness helps break up their outline, so it's camouflage!

That bump behind its eye is a gland, not a wart.

While you can't get warts from touching toads, their sensitive skin can be harmed by your hands! I make it a point to never handle amphibians if I have sunblock or insect repellent or other harsh, chemical substances on my hands. The substances would enter their body easily through their super-absorptive skin and that would not make a happy little critter.

No toads were harmed in the making of this post. I've been trained in how to hold them, and I let him go right back where I found him :)

Ticks!

2012-06-17T10:57:00.000-04:00

I've been hearing a lot of concern about ticks recently; from parents, from my friends, from the inside of my own head...Tick bites are definitely something to be concerned about, but as long as they are properly dealt with nobody should have any reason to worry. I've had plenty of 'em, and have never suffered any ill effects (aside from the gross-out factor.) Tick worry should never keep you and your children from adventuring, you just need to know how to deal with them. So, here's how.

Step One. Actually the only step I'll list. It is the best, easiest, and most important step, the rest are just details. Every time you are outside, check yourself for ticks at the end of the day. Every time. I cannot stress this enough, catching a tick bite early is the best way to prevent any ill effects (more on this later.) A tick can be tiny, so even look for something that could just look like a new freckle. Check your whole body, use a mirror for your back, especially check the base of the neck, hairline, and armpits. I have seen a lot of bites right along the waistline of pants (especially near the bellybutton.) Change your clothes once you get inside, and check them to make sure you're not bringing ticks inside on them. Another good piece of advice one of my outdoorsy friends told me recently: "In summer I switch from taking a morning shower to a night-time shower, just to be sure."

What you're looking for.
Only the top one can carry Lyme disease, but you could see any of these around here.

If you catch a tick before it has bitten you, you have to be sure to get rid of it properly. Now, normally I am the type of person who will go out of their way to bring an insect or spider outdoors instead of using my shoe, but things like ticks and mosquitoes are my exception. They made it personal. When you are trying to be rid of a tick, make sure to crush them (they are much harder to successfully squish than other insects.) Dispose of the bodies in an outdoor trash or flush them down the toilet, you want to be sure they're gone.

If you have a bite, make sure to remove the tick by the part that is closest to your skin (you don't want to squeeze the tick's body while it's still biting you, this creates more risk of infection.) Put the tick in some rubbing alcohol to kill it and take a look at it. Take a picture if you want, so you can tell what type of tick it was. Ultimately though, if you present symptoms a doctor would test you and not the tick, so you can get rid of it. Back to your wound, be sure to check and make sure you didn't leave behind the tick's head, nobody wants that. It would look like a little black speck in the bite area, or a headless tick in your pool of alcohol. For the record, it might be tricky to get all the mouthparts out, but this should not increase your risk of infection. Just do your best.

Here's what people really need to know about tick bites: am I going to get sick? Most people who get bitten do not! Not all ticks carry Lyme diease. Only the blacklegged (or "deer") tick does, and they have to have bitten an infected creature before they bite you in order to be a carrier. The biggest reason not to panic about Lyme disease is timing. If you do a tick check after every time you are outside then the bite cannot have been there very long. If a tick has been implanted on you less than 24 hours then there is a very low chance that they can give you the disease, even if they have it.

What you need to do is watch the bite area, one of the first symptoms is a bulls-eye type rash around the area. Sometimes this rash doesn't happen, so if you go to your doctor with flu-like symptoms and a stiff neck within a few weeks of a tick bite, be sure to tell them about the bite. If you do have Lyme disease and catch it early, it's just like any other type of bacterial infection. It is not fun, but antibiotics clear it right up. Again, some of my friends have been treated for Lyme disease, and they're outside right now none the worse for the wear.

If you have any more questions about ticks, be sure to shoot them my way. Or the website for the Vermont Department of Health has some very excellent information, you can find it here.

A Turtle and a Trail

2012-06-01T08:05:00.001-04:00

Here are two interesting wildlife encounters I had over Memorial Day weekend.

For starters, I've been seeing a lot of painted turtles in my yard and driveway recently. I managed to snap a picture of this little lady digging a hole to lay her eggs right at the bottom of my back steps.

Close-up

The second is an entirely new experience to me, and just about the coolest thing I've seen all year. I was kayaking up the Winooski River when all of a sudden the river widened and became only ankle deep and very clear. I saw this crazy winding track in the sand at the bottom next to my boat. My first though was that it was possibly left by a boat that got beached before me, and dragged its tail end trying to get back to deeper waters.

It's pretty wide!

I followed it until I reached the end, and I noticed this big lump of a thing. Perhaps somebody dropped something off the boat?

No wait...

It is what's making the trail!

Just the largest mussel I've ever seen. And let me tell you, I've seen some mussels.

Mussels move by extending a muscular 'foot' out of the opening between their two shells and dragging themselves along after it. You can see evidence of this in the picture above. I watched it, its motion was so slow it was hard to tell it was moving but after awhile I could see its position had changed relative to its surroundings.

As I moved up the river I saw more of these paths, usually ending in a half-buried mussel or a mound indicating a fully buried one. This experience was amazing, I felt like I had an invitation to see a whole world that is usually kept secret and hidden.

Memorial Day Weekend Butterflies

2012-05-29T18:28:00.000-04:00

This weekend was just chock full of wild animal and plant encounters. The first of which was Saturday, when we got to spend time with a friend of mine who is a lepidoptery (butterfly and moth) fanatic. We pulled out our butterfly nets:

And got lucky!

That's him! My lepidopterist friend :)

We caught more butterflies in the sunlight as opposed to the shade, and near flowers especially. They are trickier than they look, we saw many more butterflies than we were able to catch. My favorite was the spring azure, which is tiny and baby blue in color.

Here are some pictures of a tiger swallowtail we caught. Note that my friend, as a lepidopterist's daughter, has been trained in how to hold butterflies without hurting them. No butterflies were harmed in the making of this post!

See the lovely tail and stripes on each wing! If you look closely you

can see its long tongue (proboscis) is curled near its head

When we let the butterfly go it flew off really quickly and very high in the air. Looking at how it flies, we're lucky we caught it at all!

After School: Animals

2012-05-25T11:28:00.001-04:00

In our "From the Ground Up" after school program, we've talked about 1) the soil and how it lays foundation for plants, 2) the plants themselves, and now 3) we're talking about what the plants do for animals and vice-versa.

We saw standing dead trees ("snags") and discussed how they provide different habitat for animals than fallen dead trees (for example, birds make their homes in cavities on snags.)

We talked about detritus (matter that is no longer living) and the organisms that break that down. This really shows that worms and fungi are crucial to our ecosystems, because otherwise the nutrients locked away in detritus wouldn't be made available for new plants.

We looked for wildlife signs (and frogs) in this stream.

We identified some mast trees (trees that produce food for animals, such as white pine cones or beech nuts.) And once we did this, we had pretty much all the vocabulary to play the wildlife BINGO game I designed for just this occasion!

Looking for items on their cards

We did have to discuss what "invertebrate" meant, and what examples of behavior we saw count as defense mechanisms. Which was perfect because the point of this activity was to raise questions and creative ideas. For example, the little lady used herself to fill the categories of omnivore, two-legged animal, and mammal.

She asked for a hard surface to write on,

I told her where to find one.

At one point the little lady pointed at me and said "I see a two-legged mammal right there!" At which her friend pointed at both of us, saying "I see two!" Our third friend, who had wandered off a bit looking for snags, called back "I see three, and they're laughing like crazy people!"

As we walked back to the school all three of the girls looked for a black birch tree so they could chew on the end of a twig and taste the sweet wintergreen like we did last week.

Local Motion Hike

2012-05-21T12:32:00.000-04:00

On Saturday I led a family nature walk with Local Motion at Ethan Allen Park in Burlington, VT. Three lovely families joined us, with their five charming children. I knew I was with a great group when right off one little boy pointed at a Norway maple tree and said "Maple!" He later showed me that he knows oak as well, while looking at a dried leaf on the path.

Maple!

First off we rolled over a log and found a spider, a worm, and a millipede. We also found and identified some poison ivy before we left the path, so everyone would know what not to touch. There aren't many things in Vermont woods that will hurt you, we are very lucky in that regard!

Examining a millipede

Right next to the poison ivy we found a sprig of jewelweed. This plant is so very useful, the juices in its leaves can even help poison ivy rashes, so you don't have to wait till you get home to start treating it if you're exposed. In my observation jewelweed tends to grow near the plants that cause the harm they can fix, like poison ivy and nettles. Nature is pretty amazing like that!

Pale jewelweed (old photo, it is not in bloom yet this time of year.)

Along the hike we looked at acorn caps from oak trees, and saw a squirrel that might be responsible for eating the acorn out of the cap. We went on a mini scavenger hunt and collected lots of dandelions. We also planted many dandelion seeds with our personal wind power!

Scavenger hunt and dandelion picking in a field

At a very exciting moment in the day, I spotted and caught a toad in the woods. Everyone got a chance to touch it with one finger.

Toad!

Then we finally made it up to the tower, I was so proud of how all those tiny legs walked the whole way. We had a nice rest and enjoyed the view before heading back down.

If you are interested, I have another post on a hike in Ethan Allen Park, with tower photos, that you can read here. I also talk more about jewelweed in a post from a hike up Mount Philo last fall, that post is here.

After School: Plants

2012-05-19T09:41:00.002-04:00

For my after school program this week we took a good look at the plants around us. One of my girls taught us all she knows about ferns (she is very astute!) We looked at the repeating patterns in the fronds, how each segment looks like a miniature of the whole fern itself. And we saw the curled fiddleheads of some young ferns, but none were the right type to eat (you don't want to eat the fuzzy ones!)

(Not one of my personal photos, I got excited talking with the girls

and forgot to take out my camera...)

Then we moved up to the trees. I made up a simplified dichotomous key to try out and the girls seemed to really enjoy using it. I explained to them that it's like a "Choose your own adventure" book. If you see a certain characteristic on a tree, you move to a certain question which eventually leads you to the name of the tree you're most likely looking at (the ending of the adventure you chose!)

A fun dichotomous key!

This is a great activity for the 8-9 year olds I'm working with in this group. As for the actual key itself that I made, I'm planning on making some edits to it before I use it again. I realize it'd be easier for children if there are more action verbs at the beginning of each choice:

LOOK at the branch, is it...
SCRATCH and SNIFF the twig, does it smell like wintergreen? (Then it is black or yellow birch! I'd have to have it lead to a question about the color of the bark.)

The hour went by really quickly, I could talk trees all day! The girls particularly liked learning about the black birch and cherry trees because of their distinctive smells (a cherry twig will smell a bit almondy and I think it smells yucky). We even peeled back the bark and tasted the birch, it was delicious! Coming out of the woods each girl told me her favorite tree. One said moose maple, the second birch, and the third beech. I guess the trees we saw made quite an impression!

Next Monday we're going to talk about the animals we can find in the woods at our school.

Activities for the younger child

2012-05-14T19:26:00.001-04:00

I have been working a lot with school-aged children recently, so a reader asked if I could give advice on explayration activities for toddlers/preschool children. Depending on group size and location things'll be a little different but here's one lesson I'd imagine up for 3 to 4 year olds.

If I were out in the woods with a small group of preschoolers, the most important thing would be to keep them interested and active. I like to start out with a learning-type activity, so I might let them run around and gather as many different types of leaves as they can find in one minute. I'd then encourage each child to tell me what makes one leaf different from others.

I prefer we collect leaves that are already on the ground but

there is something VERY different about these leaves!

I'd have them save their findings for an arts and crafts activity, in this instance possibly a leaf-rubbing so the kids can take home an impression of their leaves while "leaving the nature out in nature." Since this requires a hard, flat surface it might be better inside, with a promise to return the leaves to outside when they have finished. This all helps work on observation and motor skills. As the kids press their leaves under the paper and pass the side of a crayon over it, they will be able to see more details of the leaves, like their veins, so this may prompt more discussion. I also like to encourage making patterns out of leaves, using more than one type of leaf in the art project, and switching colors. One of my kids used one color to rub the outline of the leaf, and then another to color the leaf in, it was a cool effect.

For another activity, I remember when I was this age I loved building "fairy homes." I used to use twigs, rocks, mud, anything I could find to make little houses in my backyard. I'd even find ready-made holes in stumps and attempt to make them nicer and prettier. This could be a good way to experiment with different types of building materials and to imagine how animals build their homes (especially how they do it without thumbs). Over time you can see what makes a home last out in the wild based on which of your fairy homes survive the wind and the rain.

Here's a pre-made fairy home we later furnished with some pine needles

A garden is another great way for kids of this age to connect with nature, even if it's just a small bed or a flower in a recycled yogurt cup on the windowsill. This is especially true if they get to see the whole process, including adding their own food to the compost pile, and getting to pick up worms they find. It's my personal opinion that there's a lot more to be gained by getting to touch things like worms than there is by keeping your hands clean. Hands will get dirty anyway, and the good thing about hands is they can be washed! (If you're extra squeamish, bring moist towlettes)

If you want to start your own compost pile, composting 101 is a great site for tips. Remember, if a compost pile is done right, it shouldn't smell bad at all! As long as you can put in a little effort there's no down side :)

Teepee

2012-05-13T21:24:00.002-04:00

After some spring yardwork I found myself with several fine examples of staghorn sumac saplings. The kids and I used these to practice our building skills. I shaved some of the twigs to provide some bark strings to tie the saplings together.

Being a good example of how to safely handle a knife.

The little lady and the young gentleman tied the saplings together to get our initial frame. It took a bit of trial and error to get their technique down, but they got pretty good by the end.

Our initial frame

We added more branches, as well as braces on the bottom. It seemed pretty sturdy...until we tried to pile on one too many pine boughs (with needles) for "walls." After it tipped we could see the points at which it was weak. I think we should have waited longer for the green strips of bark to dry and have a stronger hold on the saplings before we added weight. Oh well, we try, we learn, we try again!

I gave the kids pretty free reign on this one. I did all the knife-work and gave them some tips, but when it came down to what materials to place where, it was all up to their problem-solving abilities to figure out what might work. I think the little lady learned a bit about not taking shortcuts when some of her more hastily done ties came undone. The young gentleman, well, he was climbing trees for much of the building process, but he was excellent at choosing which sapling to add next when he was helping :) We kept the saplings to try again, so we'll all have learned from these efforts and hopefully we'll have an awesome hand-built play shelter in our yard this summer!

After School: Soil

2012-05-01T12:28:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was day #1 of Explayration's first after-school program! Over the month we'll be working our way "From the Ground Up" so the first lesson was on soil. The kiddos had so many questions about bedrock and groundwater, I was impressed by how much they already knew and how interested they were - soil really only appeals to a select audience. But we made sure to keep it interesting, digging around in the dirt to see the soil profile, brushing back leaves to see if we can find the holes where worms pop up to eat. It was a good, fun hour. At the end we tested our new knowledge with this soil horizon matching page:

Can you get the correct answers? My girls did :)

Camouflage

2012-04-26T19:24:00.001-04:00

April's Four Winds lesson was on camouflage. They provided us with fun activities such as finding "worms" (little pieces of yarn) spread across the lawn. The children had one minute to find as many as they could, using their little bird beaks to collect them. This was supposed to show which color worms were easiest to find, based on how many of each color were collected, but our little birdies were so industrious they caught them all! Still, we discussed which worms they noticed first ;)

The second favorite activity was a matching game. The students had insects cut out of wallpaper patterns, and they had to find the "habitat" (out of wallpaper patterns spread across the room) which provided the best camouflage for their creature.

Our special flair for this month was the hats my co-teacher brought in. Hers was classic green camo, mine was hunter orange. This allowed us to discuss the difference between blending in to hide, or standing out to warn other creatures about a defense mechanism, such as poison or stinky skunk smell. I asked the kids when they had seen hats such as this, I expected at least a few had parents who hunt. However, the answers I received were even more precious. The first was "When my dad goes to Dunkin' Doughnuts!" Others included "When dad goes to work" and "At the dinner table!" This is Vermont after all.

Red Maple

2012-04-09T12:45:00.001-04:00

This time of year it's very easy to see where red maple got its name. You can spot the red maple blooming incredibly easily, even from far away. This is a view from the bottom of my parents' driveway:

See the difference where the deciduous trees are RED maples?

Here's a red maple in the backyard.

Close-up on the flower.

Nests

2012-03-29T11:15:00.003-04:00

March's Four Winds lesson was on birds' nests. To add our extra bit of flair Jessica and I showed up with little toy birds perched on our heads. The kiddos just LOVED this.

One of the young gentleman's friends borrowed my bird for a bit

We made one other special addition to the lesson plan. After the puppet show we opened up my laptop and played the bird calls for the types of birds that had been in the show. The kids especially loved the chickadee and phoebe because they say their own names :)

We observed and drew different nests, we matched birds to their nests based on descriptions of how they build them, and finally we got to pretend to be birds and make our own nests!

Observations!

The young gentleman and friend with their nest.

I think the children had two favorite parts of the nest-building activity. The first was, since they had to pretend to be birds, they could only gather "a beakful" of supplies at a time. We used our index finger and thumb as our little beaks. In between supply runs, they held up their little beaks and displayed some bird calls they had learned - "chick-a-dee-dee-dee!"

But their real favorite part was most likely getting to eat a chocolate egg out of their nest at the end :)

Backyard Wanderings

2012-03-25T19:58:00.002-04:00

We wanted to see what new things are popping up for spring, so we took a short walk in the woods behind our house. We saw a few bright green leaves just starting to emerge, and it's early days, so there will be many more exciting things to post in the weeks to come. Here are some pictures of our adventure!

The young gentleman was very excited hopping about the rocky stream bed.

To his credit, he didn't get his feet wet!

We saw some evidence of benthic macroinvertibrates, like this muddy home.

Awesome snag!

This tiny cave is under a muddy overhanging bank. I liked how the water dripping down gave a miniature, less-permanent example of stalagmite and stalactite formation.

We tried to see if we could place the wood chips we found on the ground back in the woodpecker holes.

The young gentleman and a GIANT white pine tree

I did see one excellent example for tree ID. I found a white birch (also known as a paper birch) with its characteristic peeling bark:

And right next to it I saw a yellow birch, with its...characteristic peeling bark:

I asked the young gentleman if he thought the trees might be similar. I mentioned how one tree was white, and the other was yellow. "If the white one is a white birch, what might the yellow one be?" "Yellow birch!" "Bingo!"

The branches were all too high for me to show him one of the nicest defining characteristics of a yellow birch - the wintergreen smell when you scratch the bark on a live twig. You can also find that scent on black (sweet) birch, but not on white birch or grey birch.

It was a very fun short walk, I can't wait to see how our little woods change as spring continues to emerge!

Maple Sugaring

2012-03-09T08:32:00.002-05:00

On this very warm Thursday I went to the Green Mountain Audubon Center in Huntington, VT with the young gentleman and his class. The kids learned all about maple sugaring.

Our guide, Daniel, taught us that there are two parts to sap that we collect from sugar maple trees: sugar and water. To be more specific: A LOT of water and a little sugar. The water is boiled off in an evaporator so that we're left with the sweet, sweet syrup. It takes about 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup.

Looking at the evaporator and all the sweet-smelling steam boiling off

He showed us how they skim off the leaves and bits of other things found in nature that wind up in the sap (but we don't want in the final syrup). Then we got to see how they test the syrup as it boils. He had a hygrometer, which looked a lot like a thermometer with a large, hollow glass bulb at the bottom. If the hygometer sinks to the bottom, then the syrup is too watery. If it floats, the syrup is too thick. They are looking for it to settle halfway in the syrup.

This syrup still needed time to boil off water (the hygrometer sank)

Then we got to taste different grades of syrup. Fancy, medium amber, dark, and grade B. Did you know that different grades are collected at different times of year and under different weather conditions? And it doesn't progress strictly as they year progresses, they can collect medium, then dark, and then back to medium!

Syrup tasting, yum!

(See the American beech in that picture, with its leaves still clinging on at the end of the winter? The young gentleman did, and told one of his friends why it was a beech. That tree surely stuck in his mind from way back when.)

Then we got to see Daniel tap an actual tree! Right down to drilling the hole with his hand drill. It was really cool that even the wood shavings coming off the drill had a drop of sap you could squeeze out. We could tell if a tree was ready to tap because if you can reach all the way around it and touch your hands, that tree is too small. If two friends can reach around it, that tree is ready for one tap. If three friends, then two taps and so on.

This tree was barely too big for the young gentleman and one friend,

but the third friend closed the gap. I'd put two taps in this tree.

Daniel had showed us an example of the lines that they sometimes use to collect sap. The sap drips from the tree, flows down the line, and straight to the sugar house. But here at the Audubon they use buckets and haul the sap in manually. This is the method we used when my family made syrup when I was a kid :) The children ran around collecting buckets from the trees, till we had a good amount of sap. After Daniel told us the story of how maple syrup was first discovered, he demonstrated the traditional method of syrup-making with the sap we collected! He placed the sap in a hollowed-out log, and then added hot rocks he pulled straight from the fire. He used deer antlers to transport the rocks.

With all the rocks in (and a friend blowing away the steam)

The set-up (he removed the rocks since this was only a demonstration)

All-in-all a very fun day, I highly suggest it for anyone! The Audubon has much, much more to offer as well, such as hiking trails and a butterfly garden in the summer. I'll have to go back, and take some more friends with me!