As an explorer, the students become the ones who set out to solve a mystery. A 'journeyer' finds themselves in the experience. A quest or adventure have goals and missions, and tasks, where as a journey is when the trip is more important than the destination. Students do seem to have an inherent thirst for exploration and discovery. A journey can captivate the students and propel them into deeper learning.
As David Sobel mentions in his book Childhood and Nature, "Real adventure provokes real writing. In fact, research indicates that writing that emerges from the field explorations of the nearby environment is consistently of higher quality than other writing". pg 23
Journeys that involve following a steam or forested area can lead to a deeper connection and understanding of a larger context. While studying our local wetland, my students became fascinated with mapping the area. Using a computer to look at maps through ARC GIS they added a waypoint and had the program calculate the flow of water from our wetland to the ocean. The discussions, questions, predictions and (general loudness) in the classroom exploded with this discovery. "How did the water go through the highway and houses?", "What happened to it?".
Journey Possibilities.....
Visit different types of environment. This could include: pond, grasses, wildflowers, forest.
Walk Along Side:
Walk around the school green space as a group. Often a great way to have students engage with each other and debrief specific topics. You can give parameters like 1) Walk and talk with someone who is wearing the same coloured shirt as you 2) Walk with a partner and find out 3 new facts you never knew about them 3) Walk with a partner and come up with 5 species of trees/plants/birds you recognize on our walk, etc. 4) You can also link this to academic material review. Such as- Walk with a partner and discuss your story plan for the animal adaptations story you are we are writing.
(See some examples at the 30 Day Walk Challenge: https://aboriginalresourcesforteachers.weebly.com/walking-curriculum.html )
Trust Walk:
This exercise shows students just how much they rely on the sense of sight. It also let students know that the other sense can convey a lot of information. Divide students into pairs. Have one of the pair blindfold their partner, and have the “sighted” partner slowly lead their “blind” partner to a unique feature in the area: an old stump, perhaps, or an interesting patch of moss, explaining to them what it is they are touching and smelling. The blindfolded partner, after being brought back to the starting area by a roundabout route, is then challenged to find the feature that they just explored through their
Scavenger (looking not collecting) Hunt:
In this activity students are divided into groups and each group has to find (and tick off) as many of the objects on the following list as possible. Every student in the group must observe and feel the object before they can move on to the next object.
Note that two different checklists may be used, depending on your groups’ abilities. You may wish to discuss the more difficult checklist as a group before asking them to explore the area.
In a normal scavenger hunt, you’re supposed to collect items. This is NOT the case in this activity: tell students that objects certainly must be seen, touched, and felt, but not picked up (unless they are lying loose, like a pine cone). Objects are definitely not to be collected. Tell students that the Nature Scavenger Hunt is not a race! During the hunt they are to be calm, relaxed, and observant. Ask them not to run and to stay with their groups. You may wish to invite parents to join you for this activity to give you a parent/student ratio of 1:6 or better. Alternatively, older students with adequate reading skills can work in small groups by themselves.
Possible ideas:
Find...
❏ something alive
❏ a rock
❏ soil
❏ something prickly
❏ something furry
❏ something smooth and cold
❏ something bumpy
❏ something scratchy
❏ a berry
❏ a red leaf
❏ a brown leaf
❏ a yellow leaf
❏ a green leaf
❏ moss
❏ a pine cone
❏ a pine cone that has been pulled apart by a squirrel
❏ something wet
❏ something sticky
❏ something made by humans (this is litter - pick it up!)
❏ something that has a happy look
❏ something that has a fierce look
❏ a plant growing on a non- living thing
❏ a plant that is shaded by a plant
❏ a plant that is shaded by a plant that is shaded by a plant!
❏ something that is changing back into soil
❏ an example of erosion
❏ food that would be good for a sparrow
❏ a tree with flat needles
❏ a plant that smells nice
❏ something that you think is really interesting
❏ something that you dislike
❏ something that helps a robin
❏ a leaf that has been chewed by an insect
❏ a dead branch on a living
Animal Connections:
Before this activity, brainstorm a list of local animals and their behaviours. Practice each animal’s sound and movements. Help everyone put on blindfolds. Whisper the name of the same animal to two players, until each player has an animal - ie: two players are wolf, and two players are Canada goose, and so on. If there is an uneven number, give three students the same animal. At the given signal, everyone begins walking around making his or her animal call. When the same animals find each other, they should stand next to each other and remove their blindfolds.
- For younger players, remove the blind folds and combine the imitating animal sounds with the imitating of movements for the first round of the game. For this variation on the game, you need a class set of paired index cards with the same native animal’s picture and a bit of basic information about the animal. Pass out the index cards and tell everyone to keep their identity a secret. This time, in order to find their mates, the students act out the activities or movements of their animals. No sounds are allowed. Animals should attract each other by their behaviour only.
This activity has been adapted from Sharing Nature With Children, by Joseph Cornell, page 81.
Sound Mapping:
Lead a silent walk in a natural area, such as a large, wooded park. Every time a student hears a natural sound she raises one of her fingers, counting up to ten. When a student hears ten different sounds, he or she stops. When everyone has stopped, they get out their journals. Students should write their name in the middle of a new double page, and draw light lines dividing the two pages into quarters.
Tell the students that instead of drawing a regular map they will be drawing a sound map. In a bottom corner they should draw the map’s key. Each new sound heard will be represented with a symbol and recorded in the key. Ask students to also draw an X and their name in the centre of the map. As each new sound is heard, the symbol is recorded on the map at the where it was heard relative to the X on the map. Have fun making as zany a map as ever was seen!
What happens to the map if you move the ‘centre of hearing’ (you) to one of the corners of the map? Try drawing it.
• How many people had similar symbols?
Why?
• How did you feel about the human sounds you heard? Why?
Make a Park:
Before this activity, ask students to define the word ‘park.’ Ask them if they feel that they are in a park area. Ask them to tell you if this ‘park area’ is more to protect plants and animals, or more to allow recreation and play areas for students.
Tell students that parks have been created for different reasons over time:
1. Initially, parks were created to protect unique and special natural features (e.g. Banff National Park was originally created to protect the hot springs found there).
2. Next, parks were created to protect the natural heritage found within representative areas ‘to remind us of what used to be here.’
3. The emphasis these days is to create parks that protect biodiversity, or the variety of plants and animals that still remain.
Of course, smaller municipal parks also exist, mainly for people to walk their dogs and breathe fresh air. Tell students that, in pairs, their job is to create a mini-park somewhere in the natural area. Each pair will receive a ribbon, which will represent the park boundary. Students can design their park for any one of the three reasons listed above. You may wish
to model this for students: e.g. a ribbon surrounding an interesting and unique stump is a good example of #1, while a ribbon surrounding an area crammed full of different plant species is an example of #3.
Tell students that, once they have agreed on a park and had a close look at what it contains, they will write a short, descriptive paragraph about their park (perhaps in the style of a travel brochure, commenting on the wonders of
nature contained in the park!) Then students will leave their descriptions beside their park, and travel to another park, reading the descriptions of their peers and trying to find the features that are referred to.
Discussion: Ask students why we should create parks. If their park were a real park, is there a limit to how many visitors could go there before the park were damaged somehow?
Were some of the parks better suited to recreation or protection? How would students feel if part of a nearby park area were to be developed for homes for humans?
1. In lieu of writing, students can simply leave a ‘park interpreter’ in charge of interpreting the park to visiting students.
2. To assist this student, have the group insert toothpicks or other biodegradable objects into the soil - these will be ‘interpretive signs’ that will prompt an explanation from the interpreter.
3. Students may work in groups of four if your natural area is small.
As David Sobel mentions in his book Childhood and Nature, "Real adventure provokes real writing. In fact, research indicates that writing that emerges from the field explorations of the nearby environment is consistently of higher quality than other writing". pg 23
Journeys that involve following a steam or forested area can lead to a deeper connection and understanding of a larger context. While studying our local wetland, my students became fascinated with mapping the area. Using a computer to look at maps through ARC GIS they added a waypoint and had the program calculate the flow of water from our wetland to the ocean. The discussions, questions, predictions and (general loudness) in the classroom exploded with this discovery. "How did the water go through the highway and houses?", "What happened to it?".
Journey Possibilities.....
Visit different types of environment. This could include: pond, grasses, wildflowers, forest.
Walk Along Side:
Walk around the school green space as a group. Often a great way to have students engage with each other and debrief specific topics. You can give parameters like 1) Walk and talk with someone who is wearing the same coloured shirt as you 2) Walk with a partner and find out 3 new facts you never knew about them 3) Walk with a partner and come up with 5 species of trees/plants/birds you recognize on our walk, etc. 4) You can also link this to academic material review. Such as- Walk with a partner and discuss your story plan for the animal adaptations story you are we are writing.
(See some examples at the 30 Day Walk Challenge: https://aboriginalresourcesforteachers.weebly.com/walking-curriculum.html )
Trust Walk:
This exercise shows students just how much they rely on the sense of sight. It also let students know that the other sense can convey a lot of information. Divide students into pairs. Have one of the pair blindfold their partner, and have the “sighted” partner slowly lead their “blind” partner to a unique feature in the area: an old stump, perhaps, or an interesting patch of moss, explaining to them what it is they are touching and smelling. The blindfolded partner, after being brought back to the starting area by a roundabout route, is then challenged to find the feature that they just explored through their
Scavenger (looking not collecting) Hunt:
In this activity students are divided into groups and each group has to find (and tick off) as many of the objects on the following list as possible. Every student in the group must observe and feel the object before they can move on to the next object.
Note that two different checklists may be used, depending on your groups’ abilities. You may wish to discuss the more difficult checklist as a group before asking them to explore the area.
In a normal scavenger hunt, you’re supposed to collect items. This is NOT the case in this activity: tell students that objects certainly must be seen, touched, and felt, but not picked up (unless they are lying loose, like a pine cone). Objects are definitely not to be collected. Tell students that the Nature Scavenger Hunt is not a race! During the hunt they are to be calm, relaxed, and observant. Ask them not to run and to stay with their groups. You may wish to invite parents to join you for this activity to give you a parent/student ratio of 1:6 or better. Alternatively, older students with adequate reading skills can work in small groups by themselves.
Possible ideas:
Find...
❏ something alive
❏ a rock
❏ soil
❏ something prickly
❏ something furry
❏ something smooth and cold
❏ something bumpy
❏ something scratchy
❏ a berry
❏ a red leaf
❏ a brown leaf
❏ a yellow leaf
❏ a green leaf
❏ moss
❏ a pine cone
❏ a pine cone that has been pulled apart by a squirrel
❏ something wet
❏ something sticky
❏ something made by humans (this is litter - pick it up!)
❏ something that has a happy look
❏ something that has a fierce look
❏ a plant growing on a non- living thing
❏ a plant that is shaded by a plant
❏ a plant that is shaded by a plant that is shaded by a plant!
❏ something that is changing back into soil
❏ an example of erosion
❏ food that would be good for a sparrow
❏ a tree with flat needles
❏ a plant that smells nice
❏ something that you think is really interesting
❏ something that you dislike
❏ something that helps a robin
❏ a leaf that has been chewed by an insect
❏ a dead branch on a living
Animal Connections:
Before this activity, brainstorm a list of local animals and their behaviours. Practice each animal’s sound and movements. Help everyone put on blindfolds. Whisper the name of the same animal to two players, until each player has an animal - ie: two players are wolf, and two players are Canada goose, and so on. If there is an uneven number, give three students the same animal. At the given signal, everyone begins walking around making his or her animal call. When the same animals find each other, they should stand next to each other and remove their blindfolds.
- For younger players, remove the blind folds and combine the imitating animal sounds with the imitating of movements for the first round of the game. For this variation on the game, you need a class set of paired index cards with the same native animal’s picture and a bit of basic information about the animal. Pass out the index cards and tell everyone to keep their identity a secret. This time, in order to find their mates, the students act out the activities or movements of their animals. No sounds are allowed. Animals should attract each other by their behaviour only.
This activity has been adapted from Sharing Nature With Children, by Joseph Cornell, page 81.
Sound Mapping:
Lead a silent walk in a natural area, such as a large, wooded park. Every time a student hears a natural sound she raises one of her fingers, counting up to ten. When a student hears ten different sounds, he or she stops. When everyone has stopped, they get out their journals. Students should write their name in the middle of a new double page, and draw light lines dividing the two pages into quarters.
Tell the students that instead of drawing a regular map they will be drawing a sound map. In a bottom corner they should draw the map’s key. Each new sound heard will be represented with a symbol and recorded in the key. Ask students to also draw an X and their name in the centre of the map. As each new sound is heard, the symbol is recorded on the map at the where it was heard relative to the X on the map. Have fun making as zany a map as ever was seen!
What happens to the map if you move the ‘centre of hearing’ (you) to one of the corners of the map? Try drawing it.
• How many people had similar symbols?
Why?
• How did you feel about the human sounds you heard? Why?
Make a Park:
Before this activity, ask students to define the word ‘park.’ Ask them if they feel that they are in a park area. Ask them to tell you if this ‘park area’ is more to protect plants and animals, or more to allow recreation and play areas for students.
Tell students that parks have been created for different reasons over time:
1. Initially, parks were created to protect unique and special natural features (e.g. Banff National Park was originally created to protect the hot springs found there).
2. Next, parks were created to protect the natural heritage found within representative areas ‘to remind us of what used to be here.’
3. The emphasis these days is to create parks that protect biodiversity, or the variety of plants and animals that still remain.
Of course, smaller municipal parks also exist, mainly for people to walk their dogs and breathe fresh air. Tell students that, in pairs, their job is to create a mini-park somewhere in the natural area. Each pair will receive a ribbon, which will represent the park boundary. Students can design their park for any one of the three reasons listed above. You may wish
to model this for students: e.g. a ribbon surrounding an interesting and unique stump is a good example of #1, while a ribbon surrounding an area crammed full of different plant species is an example of #3.
Tell students that, once they have agreed on a park and had a close look at what it contains, they will write a short, descriptive paragraph about their park (perhaps in the style of a travel brochure, commenting on the wonders of
nature contained in the park!) Then students will leave their descriptions beside their park, and travel to another park, reading the descriptions of their peers and trying to find the features that are referred to.
Discussion: Ask students why we should create parks. If their park were a real park, is there a limit to how many visitors could go there before the park were damaged somehow?
Were some of the parks better suited to recreation or protection? How would students feel if part of a nearby park area were to be developed for homes for humans?
1. In lieu of writing, students can simply leave a ‘park interpreter’ in charge of interpreting the park to visiting students.
2. To assist this student, have the group insert toothpicks or other biodegradable objects into the soil - these will be ‘interpretive signs’ that will prompt an explanation from the interpreter.
3. Students may work in groups of four if your natural area is small.