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Nature Passport Parents' Guide
"When introducing a child to the world of nature it is not so important to know, as to feel, explore, and experience." Introduction Here are some tips for your family on exploring nature as you do your passport tour. They can help you answer questions that come up as you investigate nature, begin a deeper discussion of something that your child finds especially interesting, or spark the imagination. While you may not be able to give answers to all the questions your family raises, you can give them something far more important: an insatiable curiosity to explore and imagine, and the tools to find the answers themselves. Onward!Using the Nature Passport with
Your Child Before you set off, please check to see if there are any specific rules and regulations at each site. You can call ahead of time, or drop by the office to talk with someone personally when you get there. The Three Ideals of a Nature Explorer, to share with your children: Before you set out on your journey, heed the three tools of the great nature explorers - the three watchwords that lead the humble explorer to great discoveries and great fun. Share them with your budding nature explorer, and together you can unlock the magic of nature and marvel at its wonders. Patience: if you can stay in one spot, be still and quiet while you look around, you will see, feel, smell, and hear more than if you were to walk around and search for things. Nature will show you its magic - things that you can’t even imagine - if you let it. Alertness: this means staying wide awake, keeping on your toes, being ready for anything to happen. Keep your senses active! If you can do this, you will be able to notice more of the magic in nature, and be able to show it to other people. It is a marvelous and awesome power! Respect: this means treating nature as if we want it to stay near us and not run away from us. If you want to explore nature’s magic, you need to look, smell and listen in a way that does not damage or harm nature. So stay on those trails, and if you are patient and alert you will enter the miraculous world of nature. Take only your drawings, writings and photos, and leave only footprints! Exploring Nature With Your Senses Colors in Nature
Most plants are green because of a chemical inside their leaves, chlorophyll, that reflects green light. Other colors are used mostly as signals to other creatures. Here are some examples:
The different textures in nature can give clues to form, function and
use. Rocks may be rough or smooth due to weathering processes (rain,
ice, etc.) The texture of rocks is also a clue to discovering how they
were formed (sedimentary, metamorphic or igneous processes) and what
minerals they are made of. Animal fur and feathers give clues to
function: the soft and downy feel of fur and feathers provide warmth,
the hard shell of a turtle affords it great protection, and the smooth
feathers enable birds to fly well, and with minimal sound. Compare this
with porcupine quills, or the spines on a caterpillar, which are used as
a defense! Some plants, like the prickly pear cactus, also have spines.
Other plants have a very hard bark to protect them from pests, diseases,
and natural events like fire. Soil has a wonderful texture - soil rich
in nutrients is soft, while soil poor in nutrients is sandy or gritty.
WARNING! Be careful about touching certain things, like
poison ivy, poison oak or poison sumac. Know the plants
and animals you need to be cautious about and be able to
identify them before you set out on the trail.
Smelling Nature
Like
color, smell is most often used as a signal by creatures. A
great example of a defense signal is the skunk. Also, many
insects - like the infamous stink bug - exude an odor to
ward off harm. An example of attraction signal is the
sweetness of some flowers, again to attract pollinators.
Some flowers, like wild ginger, smell like rotting meat to
us, but they smell good to flies which are the pollinators
of this plant. So what may be an offensive odor to us may be
like a tiptoe through the tulips for another critter! And
the smell of a flower may be a clue to what pollinates it!
Smell can also signal a process that is occurring right
before your eyes. For instance, rich soil often smells sweet
- this is evidence of a process occurring in the soil where
millions of tiny organisms are decomposing old plant and
animal matter and turning it into more soil.
Hearing Nature
Sound, like light, travels in waves. Our ears enable us to
distinguish a narrow range of sound waves, but other
creatures can hear sounds that we cannot. Different
creatures have vastly different anatomical styles of ears
that enable them to receive sound waves. Compare the
tympanum of a frog, a grasshopper, and the ears of an owl!
For many creatures ears are also organs that enable them to
keep their balance as they move around.
Sound is a huge clue to the
identity of the creature making it and why. And, different sounds are
produced in very different ways. Birds communicate with each other all
the time by voice - some birds have elaborate communication mechanisms
with 100 or more different calls. But crickets make their calls by
rubbing their wings together. Woodpeckers call by hitting their beaks
against a tree trunk. Creatures communicate with sound to warn others
(the growl of a wolf), to attract others (mating calls of frogs), and
even unintentionally (a squirrel foraging among leaves). The patterns
you notice in a sound can help you identify the creature without seeing
it. And remember: some creatures may not want you to hear them. Owls
don’t, so that they can sneak up on their pray. Their feathers are
structured to minimize flight sound. A Few Last Words We hope that this journey gives your family a fun and exciting introduction to the beauty and richness of our local environment. Exploring nature can spark a curiosity and imagination that lasts throughout one’s lifetime. As with all interesting and fun experiences, curiosity about the countless parts of our environment can lead your children to keep asking questions even after the experience is over. There are many great books and on-line (Internet) resources that can help answer their questions and sustain their curiosity, while allowing them to investigate further and answer questions on their own. If you’re not familiar with books on nature for children and families, the following list will give you a good start: Check out your local library or a bookstore for the Golden Books series. They are wonderful nature guides for kids. The library is a great resource for other books on plants and animals, ecology, and natural history. Look for The Amateur Naturalist’s Handbook, by Vinson Brown. This is a comprehensive "how-to" book for exploring and learning about nature.
Nature Passport
is a project of:
Nature Net:
The Environmental Learning Network, serving Dane County
schoolchildren, teachers and families.
Nature Net provides free resources and services to educators and
parents, and is an ongoing program of the Aldo Leopold
Nature Center. For more information, check the Nature Net
website or call the Nature Net
Hotline at: (608) 221-2575 Nature
Passport and Nature Net are supported by a
generous grant from the
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Color is a physical property of light that reflects the characteristics
of light waves (wave length). Our eyes allow us to see a small
range of light waves as color. The color we see in an object represents
the wavelengths of light not absorbed by that object, and
therefore reflected for our eyes to see. Other creatures have eyes that
can see different wave ranges, and truly see the world in a different
light!