— by Carol Malnor

This is the season for giving gifts. In the last week we’ve had Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday. But it’s good to remember that we receive gifts every day of every year. I’m talking about gifts from Nature! They’re sometimes called “ecosystem services.” I’ve excerpted a list of “Nature’s Gifts” compiled by Monabay Bay Environmental News.

1. Fresh water: There is no physical substance humans require more than freshwater: without water we can only survive a few days. Healthy freshwater ecosystems—watersheds, wetlands, and forests—naturally clean pollution and toxins from water. Soils, microorganisms, and plant roots all play a role in filtering and recycling out pollutants with a price far cheaper than building a water filtration plant.
   

2. Pollination: Imagine trying to pollinate every apple blossom in an orchard—this is what nature does for us. Insects, birds, and even some mammals, pollinate the world’s plants, including much of human agriculture. Around 80% of the world’s plants require a different species to act as pollinator.
   

3. Seed dispersal: Much like pollination, many of the world’s plants require other species to move their seeds from the parent plant to new sprouting ground. Seeds are dispersed by an incredibly wide-variety of players: birds, bats, rodents, megafauna like elephants and tapir, and even, researchers have recently discovered, fish.
   

4. Soil health: The ground under our feet matters more than we often admit. Healthy fertile soil provides optimal homes for plants, while participating in a number of natural cycles: from recycling nutrients to purifying water. Although soil is renewable, it is also sensitive to overuse and degradation often due to industrial agriculture, pollution, and fertilizers.
   

5. Climate regulation: The natural world helps regulate the Earth’s climate. Ecosystems such as rainforests, peatlands, and mangroves store significant amounts of carbon, while the ocean captures massive amounts of carbon through phytoplankton.
   

6. Fisheries: Humankind has turned to the rivers and seas for food for at least 40,000 years but probably even longer. Today, more than a billion people depend on fish as their primary source of protein, many of them among the global poor. Fisheries also provide livelihoods, both directly and indirectly, for around half a billion. Coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrass ecosystems provide nurseries for the world’s fisheries, while the open ocean is used for migrating routes and hunting.

Read more about these and other gifts from nature at Mongabay.
http://www.mongabay.com/

— by Martha Sullivan

Editor’s Note: Martha Sullivan’s new book, Pitter and Patter, stems from her passion to create nature stories for children that fill them with awe. Pitter and Patter does just that as it takes children on a fun-filled ride through the water cycle through the eyes of two raindrops.

Every parent and teacher should read the preamble to The Earth Charter [see excerpt from the Preamble at the end of this post]. Launched in 2000, the charter is a powerful “ethical framework for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society in the 21st century.” 1

The charter is a call to arms but the arms are unconventional. How can we, for example, instil the love and respect for nature that the charter challenges us to?

Fortunately, when children are given the opportunity to explore the natural world, this love and respect for nature comes, well—naturally. Children have an inherent love for nature—something E.O. Wilson termed biophilia. We can picture tiny hands holding muddy, wriggly worms or the broken, blue shell of a robin’s egg and know this to be true.

The problem is that children are increasingly losing contact with nature—spending their days behind school walls or hours interacting with technology—so this love, not fostered, is being lost. A tragedy for the children on a personal level but also on a societal one for without this early exposure and affiliation with nature, these children are less likely to become the citizens that will value and protect the environment later in life.

The good news is that the solution is easy—simply provide more opportunities for children to learn about and love nature; something that they are more than happy to do.

We can do this through hikes in the woods, school and community gardens that welcome pint-sized gardeners, outdoor education programs and, perhaps, easiest of all, through the books we offer.
As citizens of the Earth, we have each been called upon by the Earth Charter to take up arms for the cause. Those arms come in a myriad of shapes and sizes. For me, they have taken the shape of books; books not intended to preach environmentalism, but rather to stoke the innate fascination that children hold for all living things and, in doing so, pave a pathway for a sustainable future.

— by Carol L. Malnor

Editor’s Note: As a long-time teacher, nature educator, and instructional designer for a national education company, Carol has a uniquely helpful perspective on the current demands being made of teachers. We recently asked her to shares a bit of the perspective she brings to her new Common Core blog.

Last week I heard a report that two of our most scarce natural resources are “darkness” and “quiet.” Thinking back to my childhood, I could totally agree. I grew up in a suburb located between Chicago and Gary. Steel mills and oil refineries surrounded our little town. I thought a “clear night” was when we could see the few stars of the Big Dipper. Most nights a combination of smog and light pollution turned the sky a dull gray.

Maybe that’s why I became enthralled with the brightness of the stars in northern Michigan. When I was twenty-something, my husband took me camping at Clear Lake. Not only was the water clear, but the lake also made a “clearing” in the dense forest canopy. One moonless, summer night I took a midnight swim. The stars reflected in the black water of the perfectly calm lake. Floating on my back in the middle of the lake, I couldn’t tell where the lake ended and the sky began. The power of nature flowed through me.

As a teacher, I wanted my students to experience the power of nature; too, and got them out into nature in big and little ways. Some of our most memorable end-of-the year field trips were hiking in the mountains near Big Sur, canoeing the Sacramento River, and whale-watching in the Pacific Ocean. Great moments to be sure!

But even during the regular school day, I tried to get my students outside noticing the subtle change of seasons, listening to migrating Sandhill Cranes high overhead, or just watching clouds.

But there were lots of days when going outside wasn’t an option. That’s when I turned to the power of books, especially picture books, to bring nature into my classroom. The simple text along with vivid illustrations, captured my students’ attention, even the 7th and 8th graders!

The books were such a success that I wanted to share them with teachers. That’s one of the reasons why I created my blog Inside Outside Nature. Each week I featured two or more books along with lessons plans for inside and outside activities. Most of the activity suggestions came from my own personal teaching experience.

— by Marianne Berkes

Twenty-five years ago I moved to Florida and became fascinated with frogs and their cacophony of sounds from a pond in the back of our home. In my first book, Marsh Music, published in 2000, I turned those night songs into a story about frogs performing a concert. At the end of the book, I added two glossaries, one of the cast (12 different frog species) and one for musical terms. I was thrilled when the Booklist review called it “an entertaining way to teach children about both nature and music.”

My second book, my first published by Dawn Publications in 2002, was Seashells by the Seashore, about a young girl who combs the beach collecting specific shells for her grandmother’s birthday. In it I alluded to the importance of conservation and living in harmony with nature, which of course, made it a “Dawn” book. A laminated tear-out identification sheet was included in the paperback so budding young naturalists could take it with them for a day of discovery at the beach. And of course, in the book is a glossary of the different shells.

My purpose for writing those books was that after reading them, kids (and adults) would feel the moist air outside after a rain and really listen to the sounds of frogs. Or they would go to a beach with sand between their toes, discovering, touching and feeling the amazing works of art the mollusks that live in shells create.

Those two books, and the fifteen that followed, identify me as an author who combines fact with fiction–“creative non-fiction.” What is a child’s perception of learning? I believe most children learn by doing

Tell me and I forget
Show me and I remember
Involve me and I understand.

When I write my “informational picture books” as they are now called, I determine how I can get kids inside the book. How can it be interactive? In 2004, I used the age-old song “Over in the Meadow” to which I put a different twist and wrote Over in the Ocean, in a Coral Reef. Kids sang the melody as they were learning to read. Because it rhymed and had a meter, it became easy for them to pick up on the lyrics. They were memorizing the book through repetition as fundamental skills were being learned. You can even listen to me singing it!

— by Glenn Hovemann

We feel downright cutting-edge here at Dawn, thanks to our new venture into a virtual pop-up book. “What’s THAT?” you might well ask. Here’s the story.

Not long ago our tech wizard and developer, Malachi Bazan, wandered to the center of our office and announced, “Hey, everyone, take a look at this.” He was hovering his tablet above one of our new picture books so that you could see the book on the screen of the tablet. Then an extraordinary thing happened—the frog on the page jumped right up from the screen! “I just had to try and see if this would work,” Mal said with his usual modesty.

Did we get on board? You bet. We just released one of our new books, The Mouse and the Meadow, with a free pop-up app. The result is that characters in The Mouse and the Meadow dramatically spring to life—the owl swoops, the mouse runs, and the snake lunges as the story is being read aloud.

We took a demo to a local school and were not surprised—the kids exclaimed “awesome!

Here’s how it works. From our website (click on New Pop-up App on the left sidebar), or from a QR code on the back of the new book, you go to our webpage where there are links to the free app. Download the app onto your smartphone or tablet (both Apple or Android versions are available). Activate the app and tell it to “go,” then hold your phone or tablet about two feet away from the book (it’s best to avoid glare from lights) and in a few seconds your device recognizes the page and the characters on that page “pop up” on the screen and the narration begins. The touch of a finger animates the characters.

This remarkable technology is called Augmented Reality, and this is the first time that we know of in which it has been applied to creative non-fiction—stories with real characters from nature. The Mouse and the Meadow is a dynamic, true-to-life story written and illustrated by Chad Wallace in which a curious young mouse ventures forth into the meadow for the first time, and gets a crash course on life from creatures both friendly and not so friendly. He witnesses a caterpillar becoming a chrysalis. He marvels that fireflies can glow. He has a thoughtful encounter with a turtle. A garter snake would have him for lunch. A great horned owl nearly does. The Mouse and the Meadow builds vocabulary and presents important concepts, such as pollination, animal survival, and food chains. Science and story blend seamlessly.

— by Sue A. Miles

The following is reprinted, with thanks, from the Buckingham (Virginia) Beacon.

If you were lucky enough to be read to as a child, or if you have experienced the joy of reading to your own children or grandchildren, then you know the importance of the illustrations in children’s books. The soft drawings of Garth Williams’ work in Little House in the Big Woods, Eloise Wilkin’s cherub children in the classical We Help Mommy, or Maurice Sendek’s friendly monsters in Where the Wild Things Are; such illustrations remain in your mind as visual masterpieces.

Add to that list, Buckingham’s own Cris Arbo, who just recently published, along with Florida author Marianne Berkes, What’s in the Garden?—a sweet and informative book about gardens, food, and the natural world, with Arbo’s glorious illustrations bringing alive the sounds, smells, and life of the text. What’s so special about the illustrations is that many of the children in the book are from the local area, all making the book even more unique.

Arbo, who moved to Buckingham County in the 1990’s, has been an illustrator for over 40 years. Living in New Jersey, London, New York, and now Buckingham, Arbo has worked on projects for PBS, illustrated book covers, on magazine and animination projects, and on classic works such as The Hobbit and Beatrice Potter. “A company had me take Potter’s book illustrations, which were very small, and reproduce them in a larger format, so they could sell them on posters and calendars,” she said. “During that time, we didn’t have the technology to blow up a drawing, as it would become distorted.”

Her most recent work, What’s in the Garden?, is a classic example of not only her incredible talent, but also for her love and respect for nature. “I’ve been illustrating for Dawn Publications for several years,” said Arbo. “What attracted me to that company is their commitment to nature awareness books for children. I’m a nature freak.” . . .

— by Mary Quattlebaum

Go take a hike! And autumn, with its changing leaves, is the perfect time to do just that. Parents and educators can hit the trail with kids or just stroll with them to visit a nearby tree.

No matter the length or level of vigor, such walks help kids both “connect with nature and establish and maintain a lifetime of fitness,” says Dr. Gregory Miller, President of the American Hiking Society. The organization encourages active, safe outdoor fun, and its website www.americanhiking.org is a wealth of information, including a tipsheet on the 10 Essentials of Hiking.

Miller loved hiking and exploring as a child in California. His dad, an avid outdoorsman, shared his passion and skills with Miller, who in turn, has shared them with his children, Devin, 22, Jason, 20, and Priya, almost 16. The family has hiked in Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, but Miller especially treasures the places they’re able to visit more frequently, including the Scotts Run Preserve in their town of McLean, Va. To be memorable, he says, a hike doesn’t have to be in an exotic locale. Giving kids the chance to play in the woods and regularly explore their “nearby nature” can be just as—if not more—engaging and pleasurable.

Like Miller’s dad, mine has long reveled in the natural world. And being able to thank him for sharing his knowledge of and appreciation for nature with his children and grandchildren has been my greatest joy in writing the three books in the Jo MacDonald series. The pond, garden, and now forest in Jo MacDonald Hiked in the Woods were all part of my childhood home—places my six siblings and I could play in and care for throughout the seasons and years.

As a parent and environmentalist, Todd Christopher speaks to the impact of such experiences: “For children, it’s [often] not about the scale or grandeur of the setting—it’s more about the intimacy of the experience. Something as simple as discovering animal tracks in the mud, or spotting an owl flashing through the trees, or finding a caterpillar feeding on milkweed leaves can qualify as a big adventure for a little person.”

— by John Himmelman

I became acquainted with frogs well after my obsession with insects, and only a short time after my obsession with birds. It was my wife Betsy who put them under my radar. She went through a period where she was feverishly producing watercolor paintings—frogs being her subject. I loved how they looked and wanted her to keep painting them, so I set out to hunt down new “models” for her. In doing so, I got to know more about these amphibians and soon added them to my list of obsessions. My interest in frogs sprang from an aesthetic appreciation, but the more I got to know them, the more I got drawn into their dewy world.

Yes, there is still that aesthetic appreciation. I mean, frogs just look. . . cool, and by cool, I mean unflappable. Imperturbable. Non-chalant. This must have something to do with those relaxed, slanted pupils, giving them the look that everything’s just fine with them. That half-grin doesn’t hurt the image. Nor does the fact they spend most of the time sitting back, or floating, while life goes on around them.

Now add in their proclivity for song. Those big, bubbly throat sacs fill with air and let loose, bringing to mind the billowy cheeks of Louie Armstrong blowing his horn. One does not need to see the vocalist to tell who he is. Each species has its own song to sing. Those songs, like most animal songs, are declarations of territories and amorous invitations to females.

A few years back I set out to find and photograph every species of frog and salamander in New England. This endeavor brought me chest deep in secluded pools in northern Vermont in search of mink frogs; flipping rocks in a drained Massachusetts canal seeking mudpuppies; and venturing out on cold, rainy March nights in Connecticut to join the spring peepers, spotted salamanders, and woodfrogs as they emerged from their winter slumber. Quests are fun. We can give them to ourselves, or they can be given to us. Finding that which you seek is also fun. With the frogs, there is an added bonus. They call out to you. They are the sirens of the ponds, puddles, lakes, and streams, inviting you to get your feet wet.

— by Glenn Hovemann

The Wilderness Society recently noted that the “thoughtful use of technology . . . may actually encourage spending time outdoors.” What a delightful observation! As every teacher knows, kids need a variety of learning tools—and lots of kids are attracted by technology. So why not use it to their benefit?

Apps—closely related to “enhanced e-books”—can be very effective learning tools because they can so smoothly combine the best features of a book and a game. Dawn’s newest app, Noisy Bug Sing-Along, is a perfect example of how the learning experience of a book can be expanded and enhanced.

In the book Noisy Bug Sing-Along by John Himmelman, children see wonderful, accurate close-ups of insects, and begin to learn where all those sounds on a summer evening are coming from. Crickets! Cicadas! Beetles! Katydids! Grasshoppers! Each makes a unique sound, and quite often it is LOUD. The book uses onomatopoeia and explains that bugs are not using their “voices” to make these sounds, but rather they move various body parts to make the sounds.

As an app, Noisy Bug Sing-Along offers all of the above. In addition, children hear the author’s narration—including his wonderfully creative onomatopoeia—as well as the real recorded sounds of the bugs. And when little fingers touch the on-screen bug, the child not only hears its sound but also sees how the insect moves its wings, or abdomen, or other body part to create the sound.

And that’s not all. Whereas the book introduces kids to concept of sound waves as vibrations going through the air which can be converted into the form of a graph, the app goes further. When kids touch a short sound wave for an insect on screen, the full sound wave recording for that insect opens up, and the child can follow along the ups and downs of the wave as it plays. What a delightful way to learn!

As is customary with Dawn products, both the book and the app offer additional information about each featured insect.

— by Sally Hodson, Ed.D.

Part 4: Explore & Experience
Planet Earth is home whether you’re a plant, an animal or a human. Our Earth is the only place in the universe we know for sure that can support life. So how do we prepare young people for the 21st century challenge of caring for our planet so that it can sustain future generations of plants, animals and humans? In short, how do we educate our kids to be eco-literate?

Think of this as learning the language of our planet. To be literate in Earth–speak, we need to understand how life on Earth functions and how we interact with it. And we need tools to help our heads to think, our hearts to feel, and our hands to act.

This month, we’ll add Explore and Experience to our Eco-Literacy Toolkit

Explore & Experience
I’m sitting on a whale-watching boat surrounded by a group of kids. We’re observing a family of killer whales swim past us. Our boat is stopped, with engines off to give the orcas space and quiet. We all hear the WHOOSH! of each orca breath. These orcas are familiar to us – they are part of Granny’s clan. One young orca leaps out of the water. Another slaps his tail against the surface with a loud crack. Without taking their eyes off the orcas, kids ask rapid-fire questions or sit enthralled by the magic of being so close to these majestic animals. On the return trip, we talk about how orcas live in the sea. Many of the kids draw pictures about their experience meeting this wild orca family. Most have decided to become marine biologists.

Here’s the thing about bugs: once you start noticing them, you cannot stop. Once you become aware of the colorful array of moths bonking their heads on your porchlight, you’ll check for them every time you’re at the door. Once your ears hone in on the katydids scratching out a dry rhythm in the treetops, you’ll smile when they return the following summer.

Insects can be found 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. They’re in cities, parks, and yards. They are under water and on dry land. They are high in the trees. They are in the soil beneath our feet. They’re in your basement and on your windowsills. To find them, it’s just a matter of adjusting your awareness to include them in your radar.

It is the happy “lament” of the naturalist that the most casual observance of some little creature is enough to spur an hours-long, or even a lifetime, adventure. For those of us with curious minds, it is not enough to simply observe and forget. We enjoy learning things we did not know. Learning is not a chore. It is the reward of the experience.

Insects are great ambassadors to the outdoors for several reasons. Foremost is their accessibility. Remember, they’re everywhere. Most have forms that we find beautiful, or at the very least, curious. We learn that there are reasons for those forms, and those reasons will open up volumes of new questions. Along your journey, you discover similar creatures that have found unique ways to express their forms and functions in the natural world.

You are on a treasure hunt where the prizes continue to shift and multiply, and where the hunt can be all the more sweet when shared with others.

— by Sally Hodson, Ed.D.

Part 3: Tell a Story
How do we prepare young people for the 21st century challenge of caring for our planet so that it can sustain future generations of plants, animals and humans? In short, how do we educate our kids to be eco-literate?

To be literate in the language of our planet, we need to understand how life on Earth functions and how we interact with it. And we need tools to help our heads to think, our hearts to feel, and our hands to act.

This month, we’ll add Tell a Story to our Eco-Literacy Toolkit

Tell a Story ”Tell me a fact and I’ll learn. Tell me the truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.” Native American Proverb

We are all storytellers. Stories are part of every human culture. Stories connect us with others across time, place, culture and species. History tells us stories about our past. Science brings us stories about our natural world and the plants and animals who share it with us. Movies, books and TV fill our lives with stories

Think of your own life as a story. How do you tell your story to others? When we share and listen to stories, we integrate our left brain’s language with our right brain’s emotions and imagination. A great story helps us understand the world and gives meaning to our lives.

— by Sally Hodson, Ed.D.

Part 2, Asking Questions
How do we prepare young people for the 21st century challenge of caring for our planet so that it can sustain future generations of plants, animals and humans? In short, how do we educate our kids to be eco-literate?

To be literate in the language of our planet, we need to understand how life on Earth functions and how we interact with it. And we need tools to help our heads to think, our hearts to feel, and our hands to act.

This month, we’ll add Ask Questions to our Eco-Literacy Toolkit

Ask QuestionsRemember when you were a kid and asked endless questions about everything that interested you? Where do stars go during the day? How do fish breathe? When we became adults, many of us stopped asking questions and focused instead on getting the “right” answers.

We learn by asking questions. Questions spark our curiosity, open our minds to new ideas and sharpen our thinking skills. A good question is one of our most powerful Eco-Literacy teaching tools. Students who understand the complexity of the natural world are much better equipped to solve difficult problems and make decisions.

While reading Granny’s Clan: A Tale of Wild Orcas, children learn how orcas use sounds to navigate, communicate, find food and stay close to their family. By asking questions, we can help them explore this complex process and examine the impact of noise on the survival of these endangered orcas.

— by Sally Hodson, Ed.D.

Part 1, Thinking in Webs

Planet Earth is home whether you’re a plant, an animal or a human. Our Earth is the only place in the universe we know for sure that can support life. So how do we prepare young people for the 21st century challenge of caring for our planet so that it can sustain future generations of plants, animals and humans? In short, how do we educate our kids to be eco-literate?

What is eco-literacy? Skills, knowledge and attitudes that prepare us to understand and make decisions that will sustain the complex web of life on earth. WOW! Sounds intimidating, but you’re already teaching eco-literacy skills to your students. Eco-literacy is is not just another special program to squeeze into an already crowded educational curriculum.

Think of eco-literacy as the language of our planet. To be literate in Earth–speak, we need to understand how life on Earth functions and how we interact with it. And we need tools to help our heads to think, our hearts to feel, and our hands to act.

What are some tools we need to include in our Eco-Literacy Tool Kit?

In this series of articles I will explore each of these eco-literacy tools and how you can use them into your everyday teaching. For each tool, I’ll share specific free downloadable activities based on my children’s book, Granny’s Clan: A Tale of Wild Orcas, which is a real-life story about a one-hundred year old great-grandmother orca and her wild family. Here is a link to the book and here is a link to the downloadable activities. Let’s start building our Eco-Literacy Toolkit.

Think in Webs

To explain a complex processes like how a body functions or how an ecosystem operates, we use systems thinking. Everything is connected. John Muir gave us one of the best definitions of systems thinking. “When we try to pick out anything by itself,” he said, “we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”

— by Mary Quattlebaum

“We have a garden! With flowers and butterflies!” The third graders beam as they describe their wildlife garden during my author visit to St. John the Baptist (SJB) School in Maryland.

I thought about their enthusiasm and the dedicated teachers and parent volunteer, Mary Phillips, I met that day as I researched and wrote Jo MacDonald Had a Garden. How best to convey a child’s joy in digging and planting while offering teachers and parents helpful information on starting and/or teaching with a school or backyard garden?

These days, schools, such as SJB, can be the venues best positioned for nurturing a child’s wonder in the natural world. I grew up with a dad who shared his curiosity about nature with his seven kids and umpteen grandkids and showed us how to garden. (He’s the model for Old MacDonald, Jo’s grandfather, in my book, which is an eco-friendly riff on the popular song “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.”)

But in today’s fast-paced, busy world and with diminishing green spaces, these “growing experiences” and “life lessons” may be missing from childhood.

Happily, SJB seems to be part of a national trend, with an increasing number of schools adding an “outdoor classroom” to the traditional learning environment. At the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), Senior Coordinator Nicole Rousmaniere, who manages school programs, shared recent statistics. More than 4200 schools have started schoolyard habitats that help sustain regional wildlife, she says, with an additional 300 to 400 being added yearly.

Rousmaniere emphasizes that commitment rather than size is the key to an effective “green education” from school gardens. Small can be powerful. Having children plant and care for native plants in containers or in a little patch beside a school can foster lessons in biology and stewardship. . .

— by Glenn Hovemann

After making books that connect children and nature for 33 years—Sharing Nature with Children was published in 1979—Dawn is on the cusp of a huge advance as we publish our first-ever app. Based on the book Over in the Ocean, this is a “book-app” that teachers and parents in particular, are going to love.

“Dawn has entered a brave new era!” my wife and co-publisher, Muffy Weaver, exclaimed when the app made its debut on Apple’s App Store. But perhaps the most encouraging thing of all is the response of teachers when they actually saw it on the iPad. “As a mother and educator, this App is a treasure!” exclaimed Mrs. MJ Broker in an App Store comment, citing “teachable moments” in reading, math, and science.

I previewed the app with two particularly experienced educators, Sandy McDivitt and Carol Malnor. Sandy, now retired, was until recently the Executive Director of the 650-student Forest Charter School in Nevada City, California, a school that features “personalized learning.” Carol is the former Director of Online Learning at Performance Learning Systems, as well as a long-time teacher and an author.

“The great thing about this app is that it uses multiple senses,” Sandy said. “For decades there was an almost-exclusive focus on visual skills, but this app stimulates auditory learning skills as children listen to the author either reading or singing. And it has an important tactile, physical movement as well as students play the counting game.” Studies show that more learning occurs when more senses are involved. Carol pointed out that the app provides “focused engagement,” an especially good thing for “squirmers”—children who just can’t sit still to read, or even when they are being read to. . . .

— by Carol L. Malnor

Busy teachers love ready-made lessons that are meaningful for students and easy to do. That’s why I was delighted to share a lesson for Molly’s Organic Farm with kindergarten/first grade teacher Jenn Sheffo. Like many teachers, Jenn has her hands full with school, family, and extra activities for her two young children. The day I went into Jenn’s class she was teaching a unit entitled “Our Backyard: Organic Farming & Local Sustainability.” Students were learning how plants grow, how to observe nature, and which bugs and other critters hide nearby. Molly’s Organic Farm was a perfect fit for Jenn’s unit because Molly, a homeless little cat, discovers those same things during her explorations of an organic farm.

Easily printing off the Sense-sational lesson from Dawn Publication’s website, Jenn grabbed her copy of the book and was ready to go. I loved being a fly on the wall as I watched the children’s reactions while Jenn read the story. With the lines, “Little girl giggles; Molly wiggles,” the class erupted in giggles too. And when they saw the colorful market day illustration, students shared their own experiences of shopping at a local farmer’s market.

Molly’s Organic Farm is rich in sensory words, so the focus of the lesson was to review the five senses, an important science standard for grades K-2. Referring to the list of sensory words provided in the lesson plan, Jenn read a word from the story and students did a corresponding motion for one of the senses. For example, when students heard the word “whoosh” they cupped their hands behind their ears to indicate hearing, and for “silky” they wiggled their fingers to indicate the sense of touch. For the sense of seeing, they pretended to look through binoculars; and they pointed to their noses for the sense of smell. Sticking out their tongues for the sense of taste was especially fun when Jenn said “sipping!” Listening to Jenn read the book and watching children do the activity gave me a feeling of coming full circle—it was just the classroom experience I imagined while I was writing Molly’s Organic Farm.

– by Carol L. Malnor

One of my favorite nature quotations comes from the Japanese conservationist Tanaka Shozu who said, “The question of rivers is not a question of rivers, but of the human heart.”

I wanted to touch the hearts of my middle school students with the beauty of nature as well as inspire them to take care of the local environment. I found the perfect spot for a nature experience less than an hour away from our school campus in the Sierra Nevada.

First stop was a shady woodland nature trail. The path twisted and turned as it followed Rock Creek through the pines, oaks, and big leaf maples. I had the students spread out along the trail, leaving about 10-12 feet between one another. They sat in silence for 10 minutes (a long time for some 13-year-olds!) and then wrote a one sentence description of their surroundings. Some wrote about what they saw—green leaves, sparkling sunlight, giant trees reaching into the sky. Others wrote about what they heard—singing birds, and the bubbling creek rushing over rocks, while others focused on how they felt—peaceful, quiet, and calm.

I collected the papers, and we took a short hike to totally different part of the forest—an area that had been recently clearcut of all trees. Tree stumps dotted a barren hillside. Without a canopy of leaves providing shade, the sun blazed down on us. Once again I had the kids spread out, sit by themselves, and write one sentence about the area. Words like desolate, destroyed, dead, sad, emptiness filled their papers.

Gathering in a circle, I collected these papers and read them aloud as if each sentence was a line in a poem. Then I read aloud the “poem” they had written from the nature trail. What a stark contrast in words and feelings!

I didn’t need to give a lecture on the importance of taking care of the forest. The kids “got it” through their direct experience in nature. Their hearts were touched. Their minds were opened. Back in the classroom we explored the hows and whys of forest management, but nothing they learned from our studies came close to having the impact of their personal experience. Experience truly is the BEST teacher.

I was fortunate in that I was able to arrange an all-day field trip. But you can create a high-impact nature experience without traveling far—just step outside the classroom door and try out one of these ideas:

by Joseph Cornell

Profound moments with nature foster a true and vital understanding of our place in the world. I remember an experience I had as a five-year-old boy that awakened in me a life-long fascination for marshes, birds, and for a life lived wild and free:

I was playing outside on a cold foggy morning when I suddenly heard a startling chorus of “whouks” coming toward me through the air. I peered intently at the thick fog, hoping for at least a glimpse of the geese. Seconds passed; the tempo of their cries increased. They were going to fly directly overhead! I could hear their wings slapping just yards above me. All of a sudden, bursting through a gap in the fog, came a large flock of pearl-white snow geese. It seemed as if the sky had given birth to them. For five or six wonderful seconds their sleek and graceful forms were visible, then they merged once again into the fog. Seeing the snow geese thrilled me deeply, and ever since then I have wanted to immerse myself in nature.

Being Fully Present

When outdoors, many people are so engrossed in their own private concerns that they spend little time noticing their surroundings. I once demonstrated this to a group of twenty-five teachers in Canberra, Australia. I asked them to look at a beautiful tree as long as they were able to, and to raise their hands when their attention wandered from the tree and drifted to other thoughts. In only six seconds, every hand was raised. They were amazed to discover how restless their minds were.

Exposure to nature isn’t always enough. A friend of mine discovered this when he took his eight-year-old son hiking in the Canadian Rockies. They hiked for several hours until they came to a spectacular overlook where they could see two glaciated valleys and several alpine lakes.

He said, “That view alone made our long trip from Iowa worthwhile.” He suggested to his son that they sit and enjoy the mountain scenery. But the boy, who’d been running exuberantly back and forth along the trail, sat for five seconds, then scrambled to his feet and started running up the trail again. My friend said he felt like screaming, “Stop! Look at this incredible view!”

How can we help others experience nature deeply when their minds and bodies are so restless? The secret I’ve discovered is to focus their attention with captivating nature activities that engage their senses.

— by Jennifer Morgan author of Born With A Bang: The Universe Tells Our Cosmic Story

Once upon a time there was no earth. Earth-to-be was part of a cloud of stardust floating through space. The cloud shrank and flattened into a disk shape that began to spin and grow tighter and tighter until WHOOSH! . . . the center flared into the sun, and the planets, including earth, formed in the outer part of the disk.

How precious earth becomes for children . . . and all of us . . . when we hear the story of how our earth was born out of stardust. The story evokes such a powerful sense of connection, not only with our own special planet, but with the universe as a whole and the great cosmic adventure that we’re all part of. Inside the greater cosmic story, we can’t take earth for granted. It wasn’t always here. Its existence and its capacity to support life rests upon the epic of evolution that brought it into being and the balance of complex interrelationships. Through the story of the universe, we lift off of earth — just as astronauts have done — and see our home as more unique and wondrous than ever.

Maria Montessori recognized early on the importance of teaching elementary age children the story of the universe as a context for all subjects. “If the right idea of the universe be given to the child in the right way,” she wrote, “it will do more for him than just arouse his interest, for it will create in him an admiration and wonder, a feeling loftier than any interest and more satisfying. The child’s mind will no longer wander but will become fixed and can do work.”

Anthony D. Fredericks, professor of education at York College, York, PA, is the author of over three dozen children’s books, six of them published by Dawn. With the recent publication of Around One Log: Chipmunks, Spiders, and Creepy Insiders, he has created dozens of activities, literature extensions, and lesson plans available for free online that solidify learning. Here he explains why they are so important. A link to them follows.

School science programs are traditionally designed to give children lots of information, have them memorize that information, and then ask them to recall the information on written tests. That approach may be a significant reason for students’ less-than-enthusiastic response to science, because that type of instruction does not allow for the active involvement of students in their own learning, nor does it allow children opportunities to think creatively about what they are learning.

Yet, teachers and parents intuitively know that when students, no matter what their abilities or interests, are provided with opportunities to manipulate information in productive ways, learning becomes much more meaningful. This is a process approach to learning – an approach which provides students with an abundance of projects, activities, and instructional designs that allow them to make decisions and solve problems. Through this approach students get a sense that learning is much more than the commission of facts to memory. Rather, it is what children do with that knowledge that determines its impact on their attitudes and aptitudes.

A process approach to science is one in which children do something with the concepts and generalizations they learn. It implies that students can manipulate, decide, solve, predict, and structure the knowledge of science in ways that are meaningful to them. When teachers and parents provide opportunities for students to actively process information – particularly information related to nature (or old rotting logs) – then learning becomes more child-centered. This results in attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs that the natural world can be actively explored and personally investigated – and that the environment, both near and far, is full of incredible learning possibilities…along with a whole lot of fun!

Click to download Dr. Fredericks’ process approach suggestions for Around One Log. Also click on “Teachers/Librarians” and “Downloadable Activities” to access activities for Dr. Fredericks’ other books as well as those by other Dawn authors.

Janet Barlow has a gift for sharing nature with children. She is director of Sense of Wonder Environmental Education (www.senseofwonderee.ca), and has been designing and running earth and environmental education programs for 15 years. She is also a regional editor for Green Teacher Magazine, www.greenteacher.com, which has generously given permission to reproduce this article. For more information about Green Teacher, please see the end of the article.

Many of us have treasured memories of exploring the natural world as children and want to share nature’s beauty with the children in our lives. But these days, children seem far removed from the outdoors. In Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, author Richard Louv tells of the many barriers we face in bringing children back to the wilds: extended hours of “screen time,” lack of physical activity, and a general alienation from nature. While most parents and educators acknowledge this situation, many are confounded as to how to bring children back to nature. They might think, “I’m not a naturalist. I don’t even know the difference between a spruce and a pine tree!” They might lament, “Even if I owned a compass, I wouldn’t know how to use it.” They feel the urge to help children make a connection with the natural world, but feel powerless to facilitate that connection. Perhaps you feel the same? Luckily, you do not have to be an accomplished naturalist or wilderness survival expert in order to be the conduit for children’s discovery (or rediscovery) of nature. All you need is sheer will and some activities to awaken kids’ senses, minds and hearts.

Continued…

Download the complete PDF of this article.

By Glenn Hovemann, Editor

Let’s say you are in a library or bookstore and you want to find a book that will inspire a child to connect with nature in some way. Should you head for the fiction or non-fiction section? This may seem like an obvious, straightforward choice (paper or plastic? credit or debit?) so you head for non-fiction because—well, because you want something about nature.

But on the way to the non-fiction section you pause, remembering the attention span issue and how some plugged-in young ones seem prefer to be bedazzled, and how that last book of facts and photographs just didn’t quite catch on. So you turn toward the fiction shelves. But then you pause again. Wait! I really want to inspire a love of nature—an ethic of caring for the Earth, you say to yourself, not wanting to repeat some of the unenlightening fiction that you’ve read aloud recently.

What to do?

What you are looking for are books that encompass the best of both fiction and non-fiction worlds. You’ll be happy to know that there is a wonderful literary cross-over zone sometimes called “creative non-fiction” that offers unique learning opportunities for children. Sometimes it’s called “narrative non-fiction.” Other people slice it finely and call some books “informational fiction.” But whatever you call it, unfortunately in the black-or-white choice of fiction/non-fiction, these books have an uncertain home.

As a publisher of books that connect children and nature, we face this dilemma practically every time we release a new book: what should we tell the folks who have to decide where to shelve them? How can we best guide an appreciative audience to books that fit extremely well in the hands of children but not as certainly in either the fiction or non-fiction shelves of libraries or stores? Alas, there isn’t a “creative non-fiction” section—yet.

One of the most influential books I?ve read in the past ten years is Richard Louv?s Last Child in the Woods. Louv talks about how too many kids are not exposed to nature, are unfamiliar with nature, or are unaware of the power of nature in their lives. Caught up in a world of electronic do-dads and technological marvels, kids are often oblivious to what may be right outside their door or down the street. Louv presents a great case for the role of nature in everybody?s life?so much so, that I have now made this influential book a required text in an undergraduate course I teach at York College ? ?Teaching Elementary Science? every semester.

Louv?s book came out after I began this series, but the message was essentially the same. Kids can find an incredible world of discoveries in the simplest of things or the simplest of places. If a child turns over a rock and discovers a creature she?s never seen before then my book will have done its job. If you take a group of kids out for a walk through a grassy field then Louv?s book will have done its job. Simply put, we?re all in this together?as we should be!