{"id":9781,"date":"2014-01-20T04:00:56","date_gmt":"2014-01-20T09:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=9781"},"modified":"2014-01-20T04:00:56","modified_gmt":"2014-01-20T09:00:56","slug":"teach-your-children-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vzbmt5sl65q.c.updraftclone.com\/esablog\/2014\/01\/20\/teach-your-children-well\/","title":{"rendered":"Teach your children well"},"content":{"rendered":"

In another great guest post,<\/strong> landscape ecologist Lisa Schulte Moore<\/a> shares stories of infusing everyday kid activities with a connection to science and nature\u2014and, most importantly, having fun doing it.<\/h4>\n

\u201cYes, fun. But I\u2019m also trying to say it\u2019s cheap and easy, and super rewarding,\u201d she commented, during editing. \u201cI think there are a bunch of deterrents to getting more people doing this kind of stuff: they think of it as \u201cwork\u201d, they think they need resources, or they think they don\u2019t have time. I was even in a couple of these camps at one point in my life. Now I realize I was missing the boat.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the action of greatest impact?\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the question I have taped to the top of my computer screen. As a scientist, educator, and mom concerned with the fate of our planet, it\u2019s something I contemplate on a daily basis. I recently had the opportunity to plumb the depths of my mind regarding this question while on a 500 mile solo road trip through arguably one of the planet\u2019s most altered regions: the U.S. Corn Belt. One of the answers I came up with was to teach my children well, especially regarding the laws of nature and human interactions with them.<\/strong> I try to do so through our everyday activities\u2014some spontaneous, and some planned\u2014in the great outdoors of our local community.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re lucky enough to live in a pretty ideal urban setting when it comes to nature: next to a large public park with a substantial area devoted to wildness in addition to the usual manicured picnic area and ball field. We\u2019re literally over there every day. Trips with the kids (ages 4 and 2) regularly include stream stomping, rock turning, and leaf picking (\u201cOh, watch out for THAT one! It will make you itchy.\u201d). In so doing we learn about species diversity and that some flora and fauna are more common than others (\u201cWhy Mama?\u201d). When we find trash \u2014 little of which makes for good habitat \u2014 we pick it up.<\/p>\n

As the kids grow older and more capable, we\u2019ve started to engage in more structured volunteer activities, furthering our human-nature education. We began participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count<\/b><\/a> when my kids were 3 and almost 1. For a few days each February, we catalog the birds that frequent our feeder, as well as those we see in the park. We learn how to identify birds common in Iowa, their adaptations to winter, and differences between habitat specialists versus generalists. Last year we found black-capped chickadees, dark-eyed juncos, and blue jays wherever we went. We didn\u2019t see house sparrows in the more remote areas of the park, but they were the most abundant species in our yard, choosing to roost in our discarded Christmas tree. Surprisingly, we saw two bald eagles (\u201cWhy are they bald, Mama?\u201d). We found them flying down the stream corridor in the park, but never saw them anywhere else.<\/p>\n

Over the last two summers we\u2019ve also volunteered as \u201cgoat checkers\u201d for a local conservation organization. Story County Conservation<\/b><\/a> uses goats to keep woody plants from encroaching on a native prairie remnant<\/a><\/b> at one of their high quality preserves, Robison Wildlife Acres<\/b><\/a>. Goat checking involves weekly trips to the preserve to make sure the goats are all there, the electric fence surrounding them is still intact, and they have plenty of water to drink. My older son, Freddy, particularly enjoys pulling over the encroaching trees and shrubs for the goats to munch on (my, how they come running!). And so we connect with a local organization that\u2019s doing good work while also learning about preferred forage and a prairie\u2019s need for periodic disturbance to remain intact.<\/p>\n

My husband also signed us up as IOWATER<\/b><\/a> volunteers. IOWATER is a statewide citizen-based water quality monitoring program in which we periodically sample water and record the characteristics of two streams: the one in our neighborhood park and a country stream located about 20 minutes from our home. We like to guess what values we\u2019ll observe before we make measurements of dissolved oxygen and water clarity, or what critters we might find. Thus, we teach the kids about making predictions, hypothesis tests, and data collection, which, when you really stop to think about it, expand beyond science skills to key life skills (\u201cThere are dark clouds in the western sky; I predict it\u2019s going to rain later today so I\u2019ll bring my raincoat with me\u201d). We also talk about the critical issue of where our water comes from and where it goes<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n

These family educational activities give us loads of healthy outdoor fun, cost us little-to-nothing, and provide fantastic family bonding experiences \u2013 I hope the pictures I\u2019ve included provide good evidence of this. But we aren\u2019t really doing much besides making observations, picking up the occasional piece of trash, and learning for our own sakes, so how could they be considered \u201cactions of greatest impact? I believe our impact is much greater than you might think, and here\u2019s why:<\/p>\n