Citizen Science

Spring is an amazing time for nature kindergarten. We should be planting native flowers, pulling garlic mustard, checking nesting boxes, collecting bugs, and connecting with each other and nature TOGETHER. The sounds of nature, learning, and play should fill the air along with migrating birds and newly hatched insects.

But instead, I see them through a screen. I hear them through a speaker. It just isn’t fair. I can only send them so many links. I can only share and hear about so many adventures. I can only assign so many “nature” assignments. What we do best can’t be assigned. It can’t be taught. It can only be experienced.

We can try everything imaginable to “virtually” connect but it just isn’t the same.

It’s not all gloomy skies and teary eyes though.

Full of muck. Muddy boots. Scrapes. Smells. Just the way we like it.

I’m experiencing nature in my own neighborhood with the three best nature discoverers I know. My own children. The oldest and I have been knee-deep (literally and figuratively) in ephemeral pond investigations as part of a wonderful citizen science project organized by our county parks. We’re daily trapping, collecting, and identifying about frogs, crayfish, macroinvertebrates, and anything else we can find in our local pond. Our silent sit spot sessions are consistently interrupted by the call of native songbirds, the chatter of woodland mammals, and the chorus of frogs.

We’re not following any lesson plan, but we’re learning more than we ever could imagine. But more important than any of the nature knowledge we’re acquiring is the deepening and broadening of our love for nature and the connections with the earth we are building as a family.

Sharing our findings has become a daily joy. Whether it is the daily Facebook posts my daughter posts on my page to share with our nature friends or whether it is the new “nature show” we’re creating and posting to connect others with our experiences, I have been enamored with the initiative my oldest daughter has taken to spread her love of the natural world with anyone willing to listen. She is learning more than ever before and developing amazing skills across the developmental spectrum all because she has the time and opportunity to do so.

No lesson plan. No standardized assessment. No homework. Just time. Just opportunity. Just experiences.

Wouldn’t it be nice if every child could do the same?

Well, they can and thanks to many amazing nature-based educators, they are. Let’s keep the momentum this isolation had forced on us and “slow down to move forward.”