Nature study
Posted by: homenews <homenews@...>
I know I am sending a lot of mail today, but I just couldn't resist
forwarding this snippet of a family letter from my Uncle Dick (my mom's
older brother) and his wife Fay. They live in South Exchange,
Pennsylvania, and are mostly "retired" but Uncle Dick still puts on
educational programs at a wildlife preserve (often for home school
groups), and raises plants to sell at a local nursery. I think he is
also still a substitute chauffeur for local Amish folk who work in town.
Aunt Fay holds a special place in my heart because she shared the Good
News with me 25 years ago at a family reunion. I hope that all of you
have as neat relatives as I do!
Anyway, for those of you who love nature study, and those of you who hate
it, a few words...
~~~
I had an opportunity recently to do a pond study with some five to
eight-year -olds at the preserve. The object was to talk about the food
chain that exists in a pond. The children were from a day care center and
their leaders requested the pond study which includes subjects such as
identification and the food chain. I took some nets to get critters out
of the water, some white porcelain trays to put the captives in for
observation and some magnifying glasses to look at the smaller details of
these critters. We were very successful catching specimens. The first
child to scoop caught a beautiful damsel fly nymph. The next, a fish
about one half inch long. While the third child was trying to catch
something with the net, I heard a little girl let out blood curdling
scream. My first thought was she mustve been stung by a bee or bit by a
snake to bring out a scream of that volume. It turns out that the damsel
fly nymph was hungry and grabbed the fish for dinner.
I had shown them a video on pond food chains before we went to the pond
and it showed various examples of who eats whom. They saw this identical
thing in the film with no reaction. A little boy caught the damsel fly
nymph. The little girl that did the screaming caught the fish. This was
her fish that was being eaten. A lesson in personal loss.
When I shared this with Fay, she made the comment that the family of the
little girl would probably sue us for causing emotional distress. Their
adult leaders were the ones that requested this program so I guess they
got sued. We havent heard anything from the parents. Today I got an
envelope in the mail from the kids with a bunch of pictures they drew and
thank yous. Next time Ill use something like a divided ice cube tray to
keep the critters from eating each other for lunch.
On the way back to the center we used the Braille trail that we put in
for the blind. I had them grab hold of the rope that guides the trail
users and explained to them what this trail was all about. After they
told me what their different senses were I told them to close their eyes
so we could understand what the blind could appreciate while they walked
the trail. They did great and were really getting into telling me the
different sounds they heard when little Richard said, "Mr. Hess" I said
"What" Richard, thinking he was going to ask me a question. "Mr. Hess,
Vinny has his eyes open." Now I about lost it. One of the teachers broke
up laughing. I had to ask the obvious question. I said, "Richard, how do
you know Vinny has his eyes open"? As he looked at me, he got this
sheepish look on his face and admitted that he also had his eyes open.
It was interesting watching little ones see a new underwater world, some
for the first time and walk a trail without seeing anything with their
eyes. That is except for Vinny and little Richard.
~~~
Blessings to all of you!
Virginia