Nature Journaling

When you take kids to learn outdoors, what is the right balance between academic focus and student-exploration and how can the instructor support such a balance?

Across my years of exploring the majestic outdoors with young children, I’ve experimented with nature journaling.

I've visited Blacksmith Fork Canyon with a thousand or so fifth and sixth graders — a few at a time — for a day with biologists and managers. Each time, we feed wintering elk about 5,000 pounds of hay.

I continue to be astonished by how much there is to appreciate and to learn from our surroundings. It’s amazing to see how just a little preparatory investigation can turn fleeting everyday moments into lifelong learning memories.

A hot, sunny, May day was Christmas for my avid 2nd-grade birders, when 35 pairs of high-quality Vortex binoculars and chest harnesses were delivered to our Edith Bowen Laboratory School classroom.

In fourth grade we look at creating a map of Utah and consider animals, plants, even people. Heritage is tied to migrations, human and animal, recent and ancient. I teach that to the children so they understand the story of the place we are in.

Whether you’re a teacher trying to implement an impactful field experience with your class, or a family, looking for something meaningful to do with your kids, I’d like to share three simple techniques I’ve found help kids make meaning from the world around them when they are in the field.

This year on January 21 we celebrate Squirrel Appreciation Day. But whether you watch and write about squirrels or anything else, we think it is time for you to get writing stories just as magical as nature rings made of acorns at recess.

Once upon a time my family met what we now call ‘paralyzing berries’ on a hillside hike. I still don’t know the common name, let alone the scientific one. I sure could’ve used Naturalist Jack Greene’s plant identification and probable warning not to taste those tart wild berries that day.

One of the greatest compliments a teacher could possibly receive, in my opinion, from a student having never been on any of my class lists, is an invitation to make a writing dialogue journal, a pen pal exchange with no grades or due dates attached.