Simple Ways to Study Nature

Catherine Levison
Used with permission. All rights reserved.
http://christianity.com/cmason/
Copyright 2002/2003

Nature study is an excellent means of introducing children to scientific ideas and relationships. Here are a few simple ideas to share with your children:

1. Pressing and mounting flowers on cardboard. Write the flowers' names and where and when you found them. I recently saw a photo-album used to store pressed flowers. Having a field guide to identify flowers and flowering trees is very helpful.
2. A calendar devoted to nature observation could be kept with simple entries on when the leaves first fell or the fruit tree in your yard first ripened for the year.
3. Collect and observe leaves. Children should know the leaves of their neighborhood. For example they can begin to notice that some leaves are heart shaped, some are divided, and some fall off in the winter.
4. Observe flowers in your yard, local park, or even a city windowbox. With time, children will be able to distinguish between petal, sepal, and other flower parts.
5. Give children a pocket magnifying glass and possibly a microscope. We like using the magnifying glass better. Buy the best one you can afford and check it at the store -- they seem to vary in how they focus.
6. Teach children to notice winds and tell them the wind is named by what direction it comes from (for example, yourself being a Canadian because you were born in Canada -- you don't become French when you travel to France).
7. Have children walk a distance and then measure how far they've walked.
8. Children can try to feed and observe city birds such as sparrows and pigeons.
9. Place a caterpillar in a box with a netting over it and watch it spin.
10. Keep an ant farm. We had a good one this past winter.
11. Take children a pond, gather some frogs' eggs, and place the eggs in a large glass jar. After the tadpoles begin to form legs, take them back and release them at the pond.
12. Someone suggested to me that children keep silkworms, but I have no personal experience with that, although it sounds interesting.The point is, even in the city, they should get their knowledge of nature first hand and get into the habit of being in touch with nature.