We have entered a stretch with naturalist certification classes every two weeks as we wrap up the class, and I have a dozen wildflowers from my last class I need to research and write up here. But before I get too far into that project, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the past two weekends, when I had the chance to take a couple groups of kids around Ashland.
I haven’t written about these hikes in a while, mostly because the scout and community groups that come for the overnight programs really slow down in the summer. But the two groups in August reminded me of why I am excited to work as a teacher-naturalist for the Delaware Nature Society.
The first weekend was a Girls Inc. group with a wide spread in ages, from probably kindergarten-aged to teens I mistook for leaders a couple times. (In addition to their age, this speaks to their demeanor as well - the older girls took an active, caring and effective leadership role, helping with the young girls and facilitating a good experience for everyone.) I only joined the group for their Saturday morning, first for a hike and then for a stream ecology program.
We hiked down to the marsh to start and found a toadlet by the boardwalk. I managed to catch the little frog - unusually small for the time of year - and each of the girls got to see it up close on the way by. Without really thinking, I thanked the toad as I returned it to the grass where I had caught it and felt a bit silly when I realized what I was doing. But I have to say it still felt appropriate to do.
The marsh was the highlight of the morning hike. Since I hadn’t been out in a while, the flowers on the jewelweed caught my eye. It’s really quite an attractive wildflower, in addition to being a useful plant. And the kids were excited to see the snails. (A bit too excited, as I found out when we got back to the lodge and I had to collect three snails from girls who had brought them along.) I pointed out a female cardinal that flew by making an alarm call, and one of the adults was intrigued that I could tell it was a female. When I explained the different coloring, she asked if blue jays had differing coloring as well, and it was fun to pull out my field guide and look it up for her. (They don’t, although the juveniles look a bit different than the adults.)
We took the group back to the lodge and started gathering supplies for the stream program. It was an unusual weekend because there was a public program underway at the nature center, and I ended up seeing several people I have worked with on other days and my uncles, who were attending the program. It was fun to run into friends and family, although I couldn’t visit long.
The stream program itself went well too; the girls caught a wide range of insect larva, making the teaching of diversity and stream quality easy. We also turned up a couple of salamanders and a very small crayfish, which are fun to see mixed in with the cranefly, caddisfly and mayfly larva.
The following weekend I worked both the night and day for a small group (seven kids) from two lower New Castle County Boys and Girls Clubs. Thinking back on the weekend, it sounds like it should have been a disaster. The group was an hour and a half late because their GPS took them a ridiculous way and they got lost. They were signed up for an astronomy program Friday night, and naturally, there wasn’t a bare patch of sky by the time darkness arrived, so cloudy we literally couldn’t see a single star. And during our night hike we heard insects. That was it. (One kid thought he saw a squirrel dart off in front of the group, which is possible, but given the time of night, I kind of doubt it.)
But for so many of these groups, the key isn’t necessarily in what we see or hear, but just that we’re out looking.
The experience is invaluable to kids (and adults!) who don’t have much opportunity to get outside, and being unusual, it’s an exciting thing to do. After the astronomy lecture, we lined up in the nature center to head out and saw a katydid on the glass by the entrance. These are cool-looking insects common enough in woods and fields but unusual in town. It was all we would see, but the hike became much more about the sensory experience. Hiking without flashlights always gets people’s attention, but this group’s reaction reminded me of why it’s powerful, as kids and adults discovered the ability of their own senses, that they’re not as dependent on electric light and society’s artifice as they think.
We ended up at the campfire after a couple stops to look and listen in the dark, and the camaraderie around a fire at night worked its magic as it always does. Towards the end of the evening, the smallest boy in the group said something of the effect of “ah, the great outdoors” to me, which sounds funny but was genuine. This boy, in fact, was very enthusiastic about the whole trip and nature in general. The next day he stayed by my side at the back of the group for the entire morning hike, talking about all he had explored by his home and how he would like to work in a place like Ashland.
The hike was a good one, moving from Hawk Watch Hill where the group got to take in the whole property, down through the meadow and into the woods. We saw an entrance to a groundhog burrow, pointed out poison ivy, passed by an impressive amount of fungus on a standing dead log, and had fun exploring a trail we don’t often use.
We ended up doing a hybrid program for this group because they didn’t have as many children as expected and couldn’t really make the group team-building program work. Instead, Sheila and I shared some of the live animals with the group - the eastern American toad, the bullfrog, the alligator snapping turtle, the Everglades ratsnake and the yellow-footed tortoise. Live animal programs are pretty much guaranteed to be popular, and again kids and adults seemed to get a lot out of it. We moved from that program to the stream for an abridged version of stream ecology. The kids saw minnows early on and couldn’t really be persuaded to explore under rocks for larva after that. But we still shared water striders, and Sheila and I had a surprise when the damselfly larva we caught quickly gobbled up the mayfly larva in the same cup. I assumed they were clinging to each other, since that’s common behavior in the cups, but this one must have been hungry.
In the end, neither weekend had anything really spectacular, and for the boys and girls clubs, it could have been frustrating enough to make it hard to get much out of it. But one thing that keeps getting proven to me over and over again as I do these hikes - it’s always worth going out. Walking around the woods, the fields, the marsh, and sharing it with others, you will always find something worth seeing, an experience worth having.
No comments:
Post a Comment