Small joys of life

Today was the first school group program of the season at Woodland Dunes Nature Preserve. I am a volunteer TN (Teaching Naturalist), which means I have the fun and joy of leading small groups of children on a 2-hour tour of wetland habitat. Teaching (and continued learning) about our natural world is very high on my JOYS IN LIFE list. It is something I live and breath every day. When one is passionate about a subject, it is easy to teach. Children know when you love what you are teaching, and they respond with enthusiam.

We have schools signed up for several days a week, every week through May and the first week of June. This year there are about 600 students signed up so far. The program is well-organized, a lot of work goes into providing an outstanding learning experience that will have future impact.

The spring program is called Amphibmeander. The students are primarily 3rd graders, from schools in the surrounding five counties. They learn about uses and misuses of wetlands, get hands-on with critters and plants that live in wetlands, do experiments involving oil pollution and what happens to eggs when ducks with oil on their feathers go back to their nest and get the oil on their eggs. They become scientists wielding magnifying glasses to spot and identify the small organisms that live in the swamp water. They learn about frogs and toads, sing and record a frog chorus. A walk along the swamp borders and out over the water on a board walk allows the children to use their "nature eyes and nature ears" to discover a world very different from what they experience in their urban home areas.

This morning as I drove up the long driveway through the swampy area leading to the field station, some of our resident Canada Geese were doing their daily meandering across the road from one swale of water to another. The last one in line had her own entourage...
(I would have taken more photos, but from the minute the bus arrives, we are totally "on stage", doing the program. So I felt lucky to get these fleeting shots on the way in!)

We never know what we will see during the time we spend outdoors with the children. It may be some of the plentiful bird population; it may be deer, snakes, muskrat, or crayfish. This time of year, the frog eggs are in masses easily seen from the board walk. One of the favorite activities is having the students lay on their tummies on the boardwalk, peering into the water just a few feet below them to spot swamp residents such as caddis larva packing their decorated homes on their backs, or tadpoles, mosquito wigglers, snails, leeches, waterboatman beetles.

Two hours is never long enough, especially if it's a sunny day. The children, and the accompanying teachers and parents, seem to soak up the soul of the wetland area along with the information and songs of the birds.

One of my personal fun things I like to do just as we start the boardwalk part, is to stop right at the end, where there is a nice clump of sedge. The kids get to feel the sedge, and find out that sedges have edges! Which naturally leads into learning this poem: "Sedges have edges, rushes are round, grasses have nodes, where willows abound." I have a fond memory of a park ranger at Yellowstone, when I was about 12 I think, who taught us during a nature walk along a swampy area, that "sedges have edges". I have never forgotten that experience.

And the best thing I teach the kids is that there is no "new" water. What we have right now is what has always been on earth. It's up to all of us to keep it as clean as possible. They know the water cycle by 3rd grade, so they can really relate when I tell them: the water they took a bath in last night is the same water a dinosaur took a bath in.

Their imaginations take it from there....