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Great Things To Do At Home with Math and Science > Interacting with Nature |
Interacting with Nature |
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There are hundreds of ways to explore the wild world with your child. Here are some simple guidelines from the Marine Activities, Resources & Education (MARE) Program at the Lawrence Hall of Science. Stop. Look. Listen. Smell. Touch. Question.Young people have an innate curiosity about the world around them. Capture that curiosity by introducing them to the outdoors and encouraging them to explore and ask questions about it. Seeing and experiencing the natural world can lead to a lifelong appreciation of the need to protect natural areas. Letting children know what to expect is essential to a successful nature trip. If they learn a little bit in advance about what they're going to see and what the experience will be like, their trip will spark even more curiosity, questions, and wonder. Talk to your child about taking a different approach to looking at the world around him or her. We are used to seeing panoramic views of the world. A nature trip is an opportunity to look for the details we miss in the panoramic views. By looking through a hand lens, for instance, we're forced for long moments to shut out the panorama and see only the close-up details. Other field equipment such as binoculars, microscopes, and journals also help children see details and enter worlds they never dreamed existed. Taking notes is an especially valuable tool to help us look closely at and enter another organism's world. Drawings are as valuable as words in the field notes that scientists and naturalists jot down. Ask your child to choose something to observe and draw what she sees. Drawing can teach her more about an organism than nearly any other activity or lecture. Children often ask questions about "why" things happen. "Why" questions are good, interesting, and among the most complicated we can ask—but they often have no clear answer. Observing nature and natural history gives us an opportunity to change those "why" questions into "what," "how," and "how many" questions, which can be answered through observation. Try to help your child to rephrase questions in such a way that nature can answer back. Nature trips are ideal opportunities for children to develop their powers of observation—that simplest yet most elusive of science process skills. Challenge students to sit still, to be patient, to look closely, to observe one thing rather than to see everything. As Yogi Berra said, "You can observe a lot by watching." As you explore the wild world around you, remember:ALWAYS
NEVER
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