Gardens Grow Minds: The School as Green Educator

– by Mary Quattlebaum

“We have a garden! With flowers and butterflies!” The third graders beam as they describe their wildlife garden during my author visit to St. John the Baptist (SJB) School in Maryland.

I thought about their enthusiasm and the dedicated teachers and parent volunteer, Mary Phillips, I met that day as I researched and wrote Jo MacDonald Had a Garden. How best to convey a child’s joy in digging and planting while offering teachers and parents helpful information on starting and/or teaching with a school or backyard garden?

These days, schools, such as SJB, can be the venues best positioned for nurturing a child’s wonder in the natural world. I grew up with a dad who shared his curiosity about nature with his seven kids and umpteen grandkids and showed us how to garden. (He’s the model for Old MacDonald, Jo’s grandfather, in my book, which is an eco-friendly riff on the popular song “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.”)

But in today’s fast-paced, busy world and with diminishing green spaces, these “growing experiences” and “life lessons” may be missing from childhood.

Happily, SJB seems to be part of a national trend, with an increasing number of schools adding an “outdoor classroom” to the traditional learning environment. At the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), Senior Coordinator Nicole Rousmaniere, who manages school programs, shared recent statistics. More than 4200 schools have started schoolyard habitats that help sustain regional wildlife, she says, with an additional 300 to 400 being added yearly.

Rousmaniere emphasizes that commitment rather than size is the key to an effective “green education” from school gardens. Small can be powerful. Having children plant and care for native plants in containers or in a little patch beside a school can foster lessons in biology and stewardship. Indoor “green” activities pique youngsters’ interest in learning and doing even more. (Dawn Publications has such activities in the Downloadable Activities section of their website and in the back of all their children’s books, including Jo MacDonald Had a Garden.)

“Kids love a garden, but you’ve got to start them young,” says William Moss, a master gardener and horticultural educator. Advocating for school and small-space gardening, Moss writes the popular Moss in the City blog for the National Gardening Association, hosts HGTV’s Dig In and is a greening contributor to The Early Show on CBS.

Just about any subject can be taught through a garden, says Moss, including science, math, natural history, geography, nutrition, reading and writing.

A garden offers hands-on and experiential learning, says Phillips, the parent volunteer who helped SJB’s science teacher to create the school garden three years ago. Phillips has seen teachers use the garden to teach units on pollination, history, the food chain and the ozone. Her blog www.theabundantbackyard.com showcases student art inspired by the garden and by the art teacher’s lessons on Georgia O’Keefe’s flower paintings. An added bonus, says Phillips, is that the garden, in addition to enriching academic studies and creative expression, also stimulates the brain, enhances sensory awareness and gets kids outdoors for some exercise.

I thought of all these points so beautifully articulated by Moss, Phillips and Rousmaniere as I researched and wrote Jo MacDonald Had a Garden. My hope, along with illustrator Laura Bryant’s, was not only to playfully introduce youngsters to wiggling worms, fluttering birds and growing plants but to make it easy for teachers and parents to build on basic lessons.

School gardens can be the start of a learning experience that grows over a lifetime. As NWF’s Rousmaniere points out, just as schools teach the 3 R’s, so, too, they might provide a setting that connects children with and increases their knowledge about the natural world. One of the most important lessons to learn young is stewardship, says Rousmaniere, the idea that we are all caretakers of the earth and its wild inhabitants.

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Resources for Starting and Learning from a School Garden

William Moss, horticultural educator: www.wemoss.org
National Gardening Association: www.kidsgardening.org
National Wildlife Federation: www.nwf.org
Mary Phillips, school garden advocate: www.theabundantbackyard.com

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Mary Quattlebaum is the author of Jo MacDonald Had a Garden and numerous other children’s books. She and her family enjoy watching the birds, bugs and other wild creatures that visit their urban backyard habitat. www.maryquattlebaum.com

Educators Agree: Our First-Ever “Book App” is
Friendly to Your Child’s Brain!

– by Glenn Hovemann

After making books that connect children and nature for 33 years—Sharing Nature with Children was published in 1979—Dawn is on the cusp of a huge advance as we publish our first-ever app. Based on the book Over in the Ocean, this is a “book-app” that teachers and parents in particular, are going to love.

“Dawn has entered a brave new era!” my wife and co-publisher, Muffy Weaver, exclaimed when the app made its debut on Apple’s App Store. But perhaps the most encouraging thing of all is the response of teachers when they actually saw it on the iPad. “As a mother and educator, this App is a treasure!” exclaimed Mrs. MJ Broker in an App Store comment, citing “teachable moments” in reading, math, and science.

I previewed the app with two particularly experienced educators, Sandy McDivitt and Carol Malnor. Sandy, now retired, was until recently the Executive Director of the 650-student Forest Charter School in Nevada City, California, a school that features “personalized learning.” Carol is the former Director of Online Learning at Performance Learning Systems, as well as a long-time teacher and an author.

“The great thing about this app is that it uses multiple senses,” Sandy said. “For decades there was an almost-exclusive focus on visual skills, but this app stimulates auditory learning skills as children listen to the author either reading or singing. And it has an important tactile, physical movement as well as students play the counting game.” Studies show that more learning occurs when more senses are involved.

Carol pointed out that the app provides “focused engagement,” an especially good thing for “squirmers”—children who just can’t sit still to read, or even when they are being read to.

“Brain-compatible activities,” Carol said, “are those that are (a) meaningful, (b) useful, (c) fun, and (d) either interesting or something with which there is an emotional connection. It’s meaningful because the fishy facts are informative, presented interestingly, and are visually appealing. It’s useful because after children count and learn about the animals, they use what they have learned at the end, in the counting game. It’s fun—that’s for sure!—having the pufferfish puff or the octopus squirt ink when the screen is touched. And there’s an emotional connection because the app is all about mothers and babies, which is something that kids really care about. This app pretty much has it all.”

“In addition,” Carol said, “the app provides variety and choice—two more important components in successful learning—when the child selects among three options, read to me, read to myself, or sing to me.

“I personally think, as an educator, that apps are going to revolutionize the way that we think and learn,” she said. “With iPads and similar devices we can find avenues for children to explore whatever interest they have. I’m excited for learners!”

Many of Dawn’s books lend themselves to fun, educational apps or ebooks. This is just the beginning. Of course, we picked an outstanding book by an outstanding author and illustrator to be the first project. Marianne Berkes’ talents as an author really shine, and Jeanette Canyon’s polymer clay art is just outrageous. And fortunately, our developer, Malachi Bazan (see Artist of the Month at right) has just the right aptitude and attitude for the job. He’s the one who made it all happen.

See more about the features included in Over in the Ocean App

Buy the Over in the Ocean App from the iTunes Store
 

Help for the Busy Teacher

– by Carol L. Malnor

Busy teachers love ready-made lessons that are meaningful for students and easy to do. That’s why I was delighted to share a lesson for Molly’s Organic Farm with kindergarten/first grade teacher Jenn Sheffo. Like many teachers, Jenn has her hands full with school, family, and extra activities for her two young children. The day I went into Jenn’s class she was teaching a unit entitled “Our Backyard: Organic Farming & Local Sustainability.” Students were learning how plants grow, how to observe nature, and which bugs and other critters hide nearby. Molly’s Organic Farm was a perfect fit for Jenn’s unit because Molly, a homeless little cat, discovers those same things during her explorations of an organic farm.

Easily printing off the Sense-sational lesson from Dawn Publication’s website, Jenn grabbed her copy of the book and was ready to go. I loved being a fly on the wall as I watched the children’s reactions while Jenn read the story. With the lines, “Little girl giggles; Molly wiggles,” the class erupted in giggles too. And when they saw the colorful market day illustration, students shared their own experiences of shopping at a local farmer’s market.

Molly’s Organic Farm is rich in sensory words, so the focus of the lesson was to review the five senses, an important science standard for grades K-2. Referring to the list of sensory words provided in the lesson plan, Jenn read a word from the story and students did a corresponding motion for one of the senses. For example, when students heard the word “whoosh” they cupped their hands behind their ears to indicate hearing, and for “silky” they wiggled their fingers to indicate the sense of touch. For the sense of seeing, they pretended to look through binoculars; and they pointed to their noses for the sense of smell. Sticking out their tongues for the sense of taste was especially fun when Jenn said “sipping!” Listening to Jenn read the book and watching children do the activity gave me a feeling of coming full circle—it was just the classroom experience I imagined while I was writing Molly’s Organic Farm.

As an author and former classroom teacher I have always appreciated Dawn Publications books because they include an educational element along with the story. The downloadable activities available online take that educational experience one step further. Check out more downloadable activities for Molly’s Organic Farm and many other books under the Teachers/Librarians link. You’re sure to find an activity that is perfect for your students.

Journey of the Universe – Now As a Movie, Too!

– by Jennifer Morgan

The stars are our ancestors! That’s the main message of my picture book trilogy for children, and now also the newly-released movie Journey of the Universe, which aired on PBS stations nationwide in December. The movie is a documentary exploring the human connection to Earth and the cosmos, produced by Yale historian of religions Mary Evelyn Tucker and narrated by the mathematical cosmologist and story teller extraordinaire Brian Swimme.

Together, the movie and the picture books offer a wonderful parallel message. The movie does for adults what the Universe trilogy does for children—and the child in all of us. It evokes a sense of profound wonder for our universe and the energy that poured forth over billions of years to create the universe we know today.

In the movie Dr. Swimme walks through an open air market on the Mediterranean Island of Samos, colorful vegetables are piled high on every table. He picks up a beet. “Every carbon atom in this beet was fused inside a star.” Soon we see a colorful meal of vegetables from the market sliding into an outdoor oven . . . the carbon atoms about to become part of the humans who eat them. “Journey of the Universe” is about seeing everything anew, “ablaze with cosmic creativity,” inside the spectacular 13.7 billion-year story of the universe.

In the story for children, I used the storytelling technique of becoming the universe itself and telling “my” story, my “autobiography.” Illustrator Dana Andersen powerfully and evocatively brings the story to life (see Artist of the Month). As told in Born with a Bang: The Universe Tells Our Cosmic Story: “Like you, I started as a tiny speck. About 13 billion years ago, or so, I was smaller than a piece of dust under your bed. It’s hard to imagine that I started out so small. But I did. . . . Like you, I couldn’t stay small. I was bursting with wild and dazzling dreams . . .” My life as a universe, I explained, was one of both chaos and creativity. Time after time I nearly perished, but somehow I turned disaster into opportunity and created even more interesting, complex forms.

Born with a Bang ends with the formation of the Earth, “a burning red ball of molten stardust.” The second book, From Lava to Life: The Universe Tells Our Earth Story picks up my experience of how hot oceans and naked earth became the home of bacteria . . . jellyfish . . . flowers . . . dinosaurs! The second book ends when a huge meteor smacks into Earth and every single dinosaur sinks into extinction. Mammals Who Morph: The Universe Tells Our Evolution Story takes the tale from there with the amazing story of mammals.

Dr. Swimme tells the story through amazing photography. “What gave birth to all this beauty?” he asks. “What was the creativity that brought this about?” Charged with wonder, he challenges us to open our eyes and see unbroken ancestral relationships through deep time—all the way back to the very beginning—and to see the self-organizing capacity of the universe that gave birth to . . . us.

Life was not an accident, Swimme asserts. It naturally came forth out of the patterning within matter—a “life-generating universe.” It was bound to happen, he says. He quotes the famous quantum physicist Freeman Dyson who said, “The more I study the universe, the more I see that the universe must have known we were coming.”

With amazing images, Swimme explains how energy poured forth, swirled, and transformed into more complex forms with deepening interiority, or awareness. When life emerged, a huge leap in complexity and subjectivity took place. Life could now make the distinction between “self” and “other” . . . and could learn, adapt, and make decisions. Swimme emphasizes that everything has its roots in what came before—and that awareness is no exception. He traces the lineage of awareness back to the self-organizing capacity of the universe itself.

And in what mysterious and amazing ways the universe organized itself! For example, life can only exist within a narrow temperature band. Over the last 4 billion years since life began on earth, the sun’s temperature has increased by 25%, but earth found a way to lower its temperature, thus keeping a climate conducive to life. How? By taking carbon out of the atmosphere. “Is all of this being organized so life can flourish?” Swimme asks.

Another example: earth’s atmosphere is 21% oxygen—very unusual for planets. Why? Because life itself has been pouring oxygen into the atmosphere. Earth and life are inextricably entwined. Earth is not merely a platform on which life happens. There’s an intimate partnership between life and the ocean, land, and atmosphere.

The trend toward increasing awareness occurred simultaneously in many different kinds of life. One of the most remarkable examples is the evolution of the eye, which happened independently many times over. Trilobites first developed a calcite eye. The human water-based eye evolved on a completely different track.

As humans evolved, symbolic consciousness emerged . . . and set in motion self-amplifying loops that further increased consciousness. Humans have gained such a high degree of self-determination, or “centration,” to use Swimme’s term, that human consciousness is now shaping the earth . . . in many ways irreversibly, changing life’s dynamics and the quality of the air, climate, rivers, oceans, and DNA.

What is the way forward with the crises we face today? In Mammals Who Morph, at the end of my trilogy, I evoked a sense of wonder in my young audience. “Crises can unleash my cosmic creative powers. Today, my creative powers also live inside of you. You may not know where you’re headed. But you’re part of something much bigger than humans and that’s why you too have exactly the powers you need—the powers of imagination, love and decision making. . . . Our adventure has only just begun.”

Likewise in the movie, Swimme says that the compass to guide us is our sense of “wonder” that will inspire a wholehearted, conscious partnership of humans with the earth. That sense of wonder has a firm foundation in understanding where we come from and the incredible creative powers of the universe that we’re part of. By following “wonder” we align ourselves with the “grain of cosmic evolution” and see our place in the journey of the universe. It’s a journey in which we belong, have always belonged, and in which we have a special role to play right now.

Science has given us a deep-time story of a self-organizing universe so remarkable that it demands our contemplation. As I have seen time and time again, children are eager for this story. It is being used is used in classrooms around the world. Our origin story, in all its depth, complexity, and wonder, is a great gift to the next generation.

Ms. Morgan’s Universe Story Trilogy was endorsed by Brian Swimme, as well as such luminaries as Thomas Berry, Nobel Laureate Leon Lederman, astronaut Edgar Mitchell, Neil de Grasse Tyson (Director, Rose Center, Hayden Planetarium, AMNH), and numerous others. For over ten years she has been giving programs and storytellings for teachers, students ranging from elementary to college age, and religious groups, and leading retreats in the New Cosmology. Ms. Morgan has a B.A. degree in theology, University of San Francisco, and an M.B.A., Rutgers University. For more information go to www.universestories.com.

Do Not Fear the Nature Hike

Editor’s note: Brian “Fox” Ellis is a talented professional storyteller and author. In writing this article, he says, “As a game my challenge was to see how many (Dawn) book titles I could work in!”

– by Brian “Fox” Ellis

OK, let’s start with the worst case scenario: Several years ago I was presenting a day long pre-conference workshop for the Michigan Science Teachers Association. Always trying to encourage teachers to take their students outside, we escaped from the stuffy conference center to go for a hike, but the only patch of nature we could find in downtown Detroit was a rectangular hole in the pavement about 2’ x 3’ with the dead stump of a former tree and gravel…. Yet in this mini-oasis we found a rich community of pill bugs, ants, a centipede, two different kinds of moss, some lichens, a fungus and the gravel was filled with the fossils of an ancient sea bed, truly a teachable moment. We studied the world from the point of view of an ant. We drew pictures of the different mosses, comparing and contrasting their forms. And we wrote stories about a day in the life of a pill bug. It still ranks as one of the best nature hikes ever and a great model for these inner-city teachers to look for nature wherever you find it!

Whatever the season, whatever the weather, the wild world is waiting to offer your students a chance for real learning; even if you are just circling the building, take your class outside and let them immerse themselves in a sense of wonder.

A fall leaf collecting trip, a wintery exploration of animal tracks, spring flowers and summer insect safaris, there is always something going on out of doors. Follow A Drop Around the World on a rainy day and see where the rivulets on the playground lead you. Or follow the energy cycles on a sunny day and Pass the Energy Please.

If you like structure, the Flow Hike outlined in Joseph Cornell’s classic work, Sharing Nature with Children gives you a great pattern to build a simple plan for a hike. I like to start the walk with a few moments of walking in silence for students to keep count of how many sounds they hear. Tune their eyes and ears. Stop to discuss the sounds. Then ask them to find a partner and keep walking while looking for as many colors of the rainbow they can find with that partner’s help. Pass out a one meter piece of string and magnifying glasses to each student to help them create a one meter hike for their partner. They can imagine they are an ant or imagine the world from a Salamander’s point of view.

Students could create a nature journal like Klint in Salamander Rain. Around One Log or Under One Rock are great models for students to explore in detail a smaller habitat in your school yard. The Blues Go Birding or City Beats: A Hip-Hoppy Pigeon Poem can be an introduction to a bird watching hike. Reading The Tree in the Ancient Forest while sitting under the oldest tree on the playground could be inspiration for the class to co-create their own poem about the animals dependent on your Favorite Tree.

And for the more adventurous, my book, The Web at Dragonfly Pond could be an introduction to a hike that explores the food web on your school grounds. Give each group of four students a spool of string maybe 30 meters long and ask them to make connections between the plants and signs of animal life, a spider’s web, a nibbled leaf, to create a web of life in a meadow or forest nearby. You probably won’t see a cougar, but you might find the husk of an acorn eaten by a squirrel, or a tree with woodpecker holes. Then each group can lead a hike for another group to retrace their interdependent webs.

My grandmother said if it’s worth saying once, it is worth repeating: Whatever the season, whatever the weather, the wild world is waiting to offer your students a chance for real learning.

Brian “Fox” Ellis is the author of 15 books, a sought after school presenter and a frequent keynote speaker at teacher conferences. His motto is “Education and Inspiration through the ancient art of storytelling!” www.foxtalesint.com.

How to Give Kids a Nature Experience to Remember

- by Carol L. Malnor

One of my favorite nature quotations comes from the Japanese conservationist Tanaka Shozu who said, “The question of rivers is not a question of rivers, but of the human heart.”

I wanted to touch the hearts of my middle school students with the beauty of nature as well as inspire them to take care of the local environment. I found the perfect spot for a nature experience less than an hour away from our school campus in the Sierra Nevada.

First stop was a shady woodland nature trail. The path twisted and turned as it followed Rock Creek through the pines, oaks, and big leaf maples. I had the students spread out along the trail, leaving about 10-12 feet between one another. They sat in silence for 10 minutes (a long time for some 13-year-olds!) and then wrote a one sentence description of their surroundings. Some wrote about what they saw—green leaves, sparkling sunlight, giant trees reaching into the sky. Others wrote about what they heard—singing birds, and the bubbling creek rushing over rocks, while others focused on how they felt—peaceful, quiet, and calm.

I collected the papers, and we took a short hike to totally different part of the forest—an area that had been recently clearcut of all trees. Tree stumps dotted a barren hillside. Without a canopy of leaves providing shade, the sun blazed down on us. Once again I had the kids spread out, sit by themselves, and write one sentence about the area. Words like desolate, destroyed, dead, sad, emptiness filled their papers.

Gathering in a circle, I collected these papers and read them aloud as if each sentence was a line in a poem. Then I read aloud the “poem” they had written from the nature trail. What a stark contrast in words and feelings!

I didn’t need to give a lecture on the importance of taking care of the forest. The kids “got it” through their direct experience in nature. Their hearts were touched. Their minds were opened. Back in the classroom we explored the hows and whys of forest management, but nothing they learned from our studies came close to having the impact of their personal experience. Experience truly is the BEST teacher.

I was fortunate in that I was able to arrange an all-day field trip. But you can create a high-impact nature experience without traveling far—just step outside the classroom door and try out one of these ideas:

Suggestions from Earth Heroes: Champions of the Wilderness:

• Play “Ten Treasures” by going on a walk around the school grounds and finding ten different plants, insects, birds, or other critters. Use field guides to identify the treasures. This is a great team activity.
• Have each student choose a nearby tree and visit it weekly. Encourage the student to get to know “their” tree in a variety of ways: making bark rubbings, creating a collage of leaves, measuring their tree’s circumference, calculating it’s height, or writing a detailed description of their tree and asking someone find it.
• Place pieces of scrap wood on bare dirt or under bushes around the school. Wait two days and have students work in small groups to lift the boards and count the creatures they find hiding there. Use field guides to identify them.

Play the outdoor game “I am aware of…” from a Teacher’s Guide for How We Know What We Know about Our Changing Climate:

• Divide the class into small groups of 5-8 students. Go outside and have groups form into a circle.
• Going around the circle, each person completes the sentence “I am aware of…” by saying a word or phrase about something they see, hear, smell, or feel. For example, “I am aware of the sunlight sparkling on the pine needles of the tree.” “I am aware of the wind blowing across the grass.” “I am aware of how hot the sun is on my shoulders.” Students continue for several times around the circle. As each student takes a turn, the others pause for a moment to become more aware of what was just mentioned.
• Encourage students to stretch their powers of observation by using all of your senses. To keep everyone’s attention focused, students do not talk unless it’s their turn.
• After playing the game for several minutes, ask each student to choose one of the objects they observed and work independently to write 10 or more descriptive words or phrases about it. If there’s time, they can also sketch their object. When back in the classroom, have students share their descriptions and sketches.

Birds are everywhere. Just look up! Practice these birding tips from The BLUES Go Birding Across America:

• Use binoculars to help you see birds more clearly.
• Observe a bird’s size, shape, and color.
• A field guide’s pictures and descriptions can help you lean about the birds you see.
• The best time to see birds is when they are most active. That’s usually when they are eating.
• Listen to birds’ calls and songs.
• Male birds may be easier to identify than females because they are often brightly colored.
• Don’t disturb birds by getting too close, especially if they have babies.
• Attract birds to the area by putting up a bird feeder and birdbath.

Also I recommend that you look at Sharing Nature with Children and Sharing Nature with Children II by Joseph Cornell. Both of these pioneering books have well-proven activities designed to awaken the enthusiasm of children for nature, focus their attention on some aspect and to experience it directly, as well as to share their inspiration with others.

As an educator for more than 20 years, Carol L. Malnor taught elementary, junior high and high school. She helped found two alternative high schools and created specialty educational programs. She is now a writer. Her books include The BLUES Go Birding Series and Earth Heroes: Champions of the Wilderness and Earth Heroes: Champions of Wild Animals as well as numerous Teacher’s Guides to books published by Dawn Publications. She is also co-author of Molly’s Organic Farm available March, 2012.

The Importance of Deep Experiences in Nature

By Joseph Cornell

Profound moments with nature foster a true and vital understanding of our place in the world. I remember an experience I had as a five-year-old boy that awakened in me a life-long fascination for marshes, birds, and for a life lived wild and free:

I was playing outside on a cold foggy morning when I suddenly heard a startling chorus of “whouks” coming toward me through the air. I peered intently at the thick fog, hoping for at least a glimpse of the geese. Seconds passed; the tempo of their cries increased. They were going to fly directly overhead! I could hear their wings slapping just yards above me. All of a sudden, bursting through a gap in the fog, came a large flock of pearl-white snow geese. It seemed as if the sky had given birth to them. For five or six wonderful seconds their sleek and graceful forms were visible, then they merged once again into the fog. Seeing the snow geese thrilled me deeply, and ever since then I have wanted to immerse myself in nature.

Being Fully Present

When outdoors, many people are so engrossed in their own private concerns that they spend little time noticing their surroundings. I once demonstrated this to a group of twenty-five teachers in Canberra, Australia. I asked them to look at a beautiful tree as long as they were able to, and to raise their hands when their attention wandered from the tree and drifted to other thoughts. In only six seconds, every hand was raised. They were amazed to discover how restless their minds were.

Exposure to nature isn’t always enough. A friend of mine discovered this when he took his eight-year-old son hiking in the Canadian Rockies. They hiked for several hours until they came to a spectacular overlook where they could see two glaciated valleys and several alpine lakes.

He said, “That view alone made our long trip from Iowa worthwhile.” He suggested to his son that they sit and enjoy the mountain scenery. But the boy, who’d been running exuberantly back and forth along the trail, sat for five seconds, then scrambled to his feet and started running up the trail again. My friend said he felt like screaming, “Stop! Look at this incredible view!”

How can we help others experience nature deeply when their minds and bodies are so restless? The secret I’ve discovered is to focus their attention with captivating nature activities that engage their senses.

For example, in the Camera Game, which is played with two people, the “photographer” taps the shoulder of the “camera” twice, and the camera-person opens his eyes on the scene before him. Because the camera-person looks for only three seconds, his mind doesn’t have time to daydream, so the impact of his “picture” is quite powerful. Players of the Camera Game have told me that they’ve retained a vivid memory of their pictures for five, even eight years afterwards. This activity helps people of all ages experience what it is like to truly see.

Other examples of simple, absorbing activities are mapping natural sounds; writing an acrostic poem about something captivating; drawing one’s “best nature view”; and interviewing nature, where you look for a special rock, plant, or animal that has an interesting story to tell. Then you ask it questions like, “What events have you seen in your life? What is it like to live here? Is there something you would like to tell me?”

Superlative Moments

Abraham Maslow described peak experiences as especially joyous with “feelings of intense happiness and well-being” and which often involve “an awareness of transcendental unity.” Mountaineers commonly report having these kinds of experiences. John Muir, in the following passage, explains why:

“In climbing where the danger is great, all attention has to be given the ground step by step, leaving nothing for beauty by the way. But this care, so keenly and narrowly concentrated, is not without advantages. One is thoroughly aroused. Compared with the alertness of the senses… on such occasions, one may be said to sleep all the rest of the year.”
- John of the Mountains

The intense focus required by wilderness pursuits such as climbing heightens one’s awareness, which is why so many people avidly enjoy them.

Leaders can encourage peak experiences on less wild walks by using experiential activities that focus people’s complete attention on nature. Concentration is concentration: people benefit from increased perception wherever there are. One educator, who hikes the Appalachian or Pacific Crest Trail every summer, practiced Sharing Nature’s reflective I Am the Mountain exercise for just four minutes. Afterwards, he said enthusiastically, “I was able to experience a state of heightened awareness that usually takes me a month in the wilderness to feel.”

Meeting Nature Face to Face

Science can only describe a flowering cherry tree; it cannot help us experience the cherry tree in its totality. To develop love and concern for the earth, we need deep, absorbing nature experiences; otherwise, our relationship with nature will remain distant and abstract and never touch us deeply.

Rita Mendonca, Sharing Nature Brazil’s national coordinator, recently gave a training program in the Amazon for professional ecotourism guides, some of whom had worked in the area for 40 years. Their attitude at first was that she had little to teach them. But after participating in several experiential Sharing Nature activities, a woman approached Rita and said with deep emotion, “You are helping me find the forest inside of me! We don’t know the forest in this way!”

Absorbing experiences bring us face-to-face with nature. The observer and the observed become united—and only then is true knowing and love awakened in the observer’s heart. John Muir said that the content of the human soul contains the whole world. The deeper purpose of experiential learning is to broaden our experience of life and include other realities as our own. When one is immersed in nature, Muir said, the “body vanishes and the freed soul goes abroad.” Only by expanding our sense of identity beyond our physical body and egoic self can we commune with distant horizons, brightly colored songbirds, and countless other delights.

When people are quiet and receptive, fully immersed in nature, insights on the real purpose of life reveal themselves. is a teacher at the Punahou School on Oahu Island, Hawaii, where every year he leads his thirteen-year-old students on an inspirational nature walk along a remote and wild coastline. Below are some of his students’ thoughts about life and nature after playing reflective, experiential Sharing Nature activities like Expanding Circles, Trail of Beauty, and the John Muir Game:

• It made me feel like I was actually a part of the sand and ocean.
• I was a calm ocean wave gently rolling towards the shore. I was the reef, feeling the cool water roll over me.
• I felt euphoria. I felt like I was one with everything around me.
• It felt powerful, yet peaceful. Every part of me is moving and flowing in harmony.
• Watching the turtle swim carefree reminded me that I have nothing to worry about.
• You really live when you take time to notice your surroundings.
• If you find beauty within the world you can find it within yourself.

Jessica, one of David’s students, wanted to express her appreciation for the ocean, so she gratefully wrote “thank you” in the sand—and let the ocean waves embrace her sentiment and take it into itself.

Fostering in others beautiful human qualities of humility, respect, love, and joyful harmony with one’s environment outside and inside of oneself—as expressed by the Hawaiian students—is what nature education is really about.

Becoming Good Stewards

A teacher in the Southwest once asked the children in his class to draw a picture of themselves. He recalled, “The American children completely covered the paper with a drawing of their body, but my Navajo students drew themselves differently. They made their bodies much smaller and included the nearby mountains, canyon walls, and dry desert washes. To the Navajo, the environment is as much a part of who they are as are their own arms and legs.” The understanding that we are a part of something larger than ourselves is Nature’s greatest gift. With it, our sense of identity expands and, by extension, so does our compassion for all things.

In order to create a society that truly reveres the natural world, we must offer its citizens life-changing experiences in nature. Saint Teresa of Avila said, “The soul in its ecstatic state grasps in an instant more truth than can be arrived at by months, or even years, of painstaking thought and study.” One moment of deeply entering into Nature can inspire in us new attitudes and priorities in life that would take years to develop.

When people feel immersed and absorbed in the natural world, they are learning the highest that nature has to offer—because Nature Herself is their Teacher.

Joseph Cornell is the author of the highly acclaimed Sharing Nature Book Series and is the Founder and President of Sharing Nature Worldwide. You are welcome to reprint this article with prior permission from Sharing Nature Worldwide. You can find out more about Sharing Nature activities and resources at www.sharingnature.com or (530) 478-7650. Contact Joseph Cornell at: info@sharingnature.com.

How to Help Children Connect to Earth through the Story of the Universe

– by Jennifer Morgan author of Born With A Bang: The Universe Tells Our Cosmic Story

Once upon a time there was no earth. Earth-to-be was part of a cloud of stardust floating through space. The cloud shrank and flattened into a disk shape that began to spin and grow tighter and tighter until WHOOSH! . . . the center flared into the sun, and the planets, including earth, formed in the outer part of the disk.

How precious earth becomes for children . . . and all of us . . . when we hear the story of how our earth was born out of stardust. The story evokes such a powerful sense of connection, not only with our own special planet, but with the universe as a whole and the great cosmic adventure that we’re all part of. Inside the greater cosmic story, we can’t take earth for granted. It wasn’t always here. Its existence and its capacity to support life rests upon the epic of evolution that brought it into being and the balance of complex interrelationships. Through the story of the universe, we lift off of earth — just as astronauts have done — and see our home as more unique and wondrous than ever.

Maria Montessori recognized early on the importance of teaching elementary age children the story of the universe as a context for all subjects. “If the right idea of the universe be given to the child in the right way,” she wrote, “it will do more for him than just arouse his interest, for it will create in him an admiration and wonder, a feeling loftier than any interest and more satisfying. The child’s mind will no longer wander but will become fixed and can do work.”

Not long before her death in 1952 she developed the Cosmic Education Curriculum which became the philosophical foundation of the elementary curriculum. It is based on the idea that studying the great cosmic adventure, the greatest story of all, gives context, meaning, and a sense of connection and excitement to everything. “It is not enough,” she said, “for the teacher to love the child. She must first love and understand the Universe.”

Five Great Lessons provide the “scaffolding” for Cosmic Education:

1. The Story of the Universe
2. The Story of Life
3. The Story of Humans
4. The Story of Communicating in Signs
5. The Story of Math

The first Great Lesson, The Story of the Universe, tells the story of the big bang through formation of the solar system. The Story of Life tells the story of earth nurturing life into being that becomes more and more complex. The Story of Humans starts with the evolution of the very first humans and tells the story of human evolution up to today. The Story of Communicating in Signs explores even more deeply human cultures and language while the Story of Math is specifically about math. All subjects are placed on this Great Lesson Scaffolding, thus showing the interrelationships between all subjects.

Within cosmic education, ecology and love of the earth are not taught as separate subjects but are interwoven into everything.

To help tell this story, I wrote the Universe Story Trilogy, illustrated by Dana Lynne Andersen, and published by Dawn Publications. Born With a Bang covers the first Great Lesson, the big bang through formation of the solar system. From Lava to Life covers the second Great Lesson; and the third book, Mammals Who Morph, covers third Great Lesson and also touches on the fourth and fifth Great Lessons as well.

Now there is another helpful tool for teachers, the Cosmic Story Cards and Timeline based on Born With a Bang, recently published by Wasecabiomes.org. The package consists of: 1) a large teacher card set with a picture image on one side and a simple story line on the back, 2) a smaller card set for students to sequence, 3) an even smaller card set for sequencing on the timeline, and 4) a timeline. The package which retails for $95. The card sets are a great complement to the book. After telling the story to the class, students can internalize the story and sequence the cards on their own. They can read the book before or after sequencing the cards. The book is a more complex version of the story and makes a great way for students to deepen their immersion in the story. For more information about the Cosmic Story Cards and Timeline, go to www.wasecabiomes.org and select “The Big Picture.” You can also call Waseca at 866-546-8833 for a catalog.

For information about teacher trainings and school visits, go to my website at www.universestories.org. And if you have any feedback regarding the books and/or the Cosmic Story Cards please write to me through my website.

Kids Training Kids for Nature Leadership

Greg Traymar, Director of Sharing Nature North America, explains his new program in which high school students lead younger students in nature discovery.

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If you want to get through to an 8-year old, find an inspired 16-year old.

That’s what I’ve found in an extraordinary experience I had during the 2009-10 school year in which I trained a group of 16 high school students in Sharing Nature® games. These students, in turn, taught close to 300 elementary and middle school students in California, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii. The results were astounding, as exemplified one day when the elementary teacher told us that her class was one of the most challenging groups of students in the school.

We knew we were the ones going to be tested! We had prepared well, and our program was based on the highly acclaimed Sharing Nature with Children and Sharing Nature with Children II books by Joseph Cornell—groundbreaking books that sparked a worldwide revolution in nature education. Under my guidance, this training gave the high school students the leadership skills, techniques and inspiration needed to effectively guide others in deeper, more meaningful experiences of nature.
Nevertheless, it was very obvious my high schoolers were nervous, to say the least!

The kids were truly like a pack of wild wolves when we arrived, so the high schoolers started with “Owls and Crows,” an activity to awaken their enthusiasm and show them we were going to have fun. By the end of this activity, nothing much had changed in terms of their scattered energy, but at least we could see they were enjoying themselves.

Gradually as more sensitive and calming activities were introduced, a miracle occurred and their wolf like quality began to subside. By the end of the session the overall group energy was completely changed. They were calm, attentive and eager to share their nature experiences. My high school students were completely stunned by the changes they saw occur in their students. It was at this precise moment we saw the power of this training for leader and participant alike.

This program which was launched at the Living Wisdom School, a private school in Nevada City, California. I first led them in direct experiences of nature and then had them develop their own nature sessions which they would share with each other and children at other schools. The high school students were continually inspired by how simple and effective Sharing Nature was in focusing children’s energies and giving them memorable experiences of nature they would never forget. Here is the basic outline of their training:

Awaken Enthusiasm (Sept-Oct)
The class began by first giving the high school students direct experiences that awaken their enthusiasm and love for nature. As Bulwer-Lytton says, “Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm . . . it is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it.” These experiences gave them a tangible understanding of what they would be arousing in others. After a few classes of instructing the students in Flow Learning™ and the nature activities, I then hand the class over to them, to practice leading each other in the nature activities.

Supportive Leadership (Nov-Feb)
While in the first part of the class I was the “leader,” now the high school students led. I stayed on the sidelines as they led their classmates (and me) in nature experiences. As Sir Antony Jay said, “The only real training for leadership is leadership.” I supported them and gave tips when I felt they were needed, but mostly I let the students work things out for themselves. By this method they understood things more completely and were able take ownership. I can’t recall a single instance in which I had to discipline or take charge. This approach takes the willful energy that teenagers usually have, and channels it into a positive outlet where they can feel a sense of accomplishment.

Share Experience (March-May)
Now that the students were fully trained and inspired, we went out and shared nature programs with the larger community. As Joseph Cornell says, “sharing clarifies and strengthens our own experiences of nature.” It was during these visits that the high school students were able to see firsthand the effectiveness of Flow Learning and the Sharing Nature activities.

Greg Traymar is the Director of Sharing Nature North America and the Sharing Nature Leadership Team. He can be reached at greg@sharingnature.com and www.sharingnature.com.

Why the Process Approach to Learning Matters So Much

Anthony D. Fredericks, professor of education at York College, York, PA, is the author of over three dozen children’s books, six of them published by Dawn. With the recent publication of Around One Log: Chipmunks, Spiders, and Creepy Insiders, he has created dozens of activities, literature extensions, and lesson plans available for free online that solidify learning. Here he explains why they are so important. A link to them follows.

School science programs are traditionally designed to give children lots of information, have them memorize that information, and then ask them to recall the information on written tests. That approach may be a significant reason for students’ less-than-enthusiastic response to science, because that type of instruction does not allow for the active involvement of students in their own learning, nor does it allow children opportunities to think creatively about what they are learning.

Yet, teachers and parents intuitively know that when students, no matter what their abilities or interests, are provided with opportunities to manipulate information in productive ways, learning becomes much more meaningful. This is a process approach to learning – an approach which provides students with an abundance of projects, activities, and instructional designs that allow them to make decisions and solve problems. Through this approach students get a sense that learning is much more than the commission of facts to memory. Rather, it is what children do with that knowledge that determines its impact on their attitudes and aptitudes.

A process approach to science is one in which children do something with the concepts and generalizations they learn. It implies that students can manipulate, decide, solve, predict, and structure the knowledge of science in ways that are meaningful to them. When teachers and parents provide opportunities for students to actively process information – particularly information related to nature (or old rotting logs) – then learning becomes more child-centered. This results in attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs that the natural world can be actively explored and personally investigated – and that the environment, both near and far, is full of incredible learning possibilities…along with a whole lot of fun!

Click to download Dr. Fredericks’ process approach suggestions for Around One Log. Also click on “Teachers/Librarians” and “Downloadable Activities” to access activities for Dr. Fredericks’ other books as well as those by other Dawn authors.