10 Grown-up Nature Study Ideas for Teens

April 18, 2017 By Kris Bales

For many homeschooling families, nature study plays a significant role in the elementary years. Then, it gives way to more serious science in the high school years. However, nature study remains relevant for high school science.

Backyard nature study provides a chance for real-world application for biology and botany, but if you’d like to go more in-depth with your high school students, try these ideas!

Nature Study Ideas for Teens

1. Zoos and aquariums. Most zoos and aquariums have a volunteer program. Working with animals and marine life in a setting that focuses on conservation, breeding, and habitats provides an excellent way to learn about creatures that most of us aren’t going to encounter on an average nature walk.

2. Conservation projects. Your teens can learn about nature while taking part in a conservation project. Some ideas include:

Participate in The Great Backyard Bird Count
Volunteer as a sea turtle nest parent
Clean up waterways
Plant trees
Build nesting boxes for birds, squirrels, or bats

3. National parks. There are 59 national parks in the United States. Visit as many of them as you can! Observe and journal the flora, fauna, wildlife, insects, and birds that you see at each. Some teens may be interested in internship opportunities that are available at some parks.

4. Hiking trips. With teens, you can plan more advanced hiking trips than you can with younger children. Consider some day or overnight trips or an extended trip such as hiking the Appalachian Trail.

5. Bird-watching. Bird-watching is a fantastic hobby for all ages, but teens can sit quietly for much longer periods than small children, making them ideal candidates for more advanced bird-watching outings.

6. Animal rescue or rehab centers. If you have an area animal rescue or rehab facility, your teen may want to check for volunteer opportunities – or you may just want to arrange a field trip to talk to the animal caretakers.

7. Snorkeling. If you live in an area where snorkeling is an option, consider taking advantage of the unique opportunity to see marine life in their natural habitat.

8. Camping or caving. Both offer a chance to see nature from a different perspective. Caving may allow you to observe unique mammals, such as bats. Camping offers stargazing opportunities, along with a chance to see nocturnal wildlife in action.

9. Gardening. Let teens plant and maintain their own flower, herb, or vegetable gardens. They can journal the various stages from seeds to mature plant.

10. Botanical gardens or butterfly houses. If the opportunities are available, your teens can visit or volunteer at a botanical garden or butterfly house. We have a local butterfly house, and that was one of the most fascinating field trips we’ve ever attended. Tell your teens to be sure to bring their natural journals along for visits.

What are some of your favorite ways to incorporate nature study for teens?

Easy Spring Nature Study Ideas

April 13, 2017 By Erin Vincent

Written by Erin Vincent of Nourishing My Scholars.

Spring is such an exciting time of the year. The birds are singing, the flowers are blooming, and I don’t know about you, but this mama is tired of being cooped up all winter! So here are a couple of easy spring nature study ideas to get you and your kiddos outside and into nature.

Easy Spring Nature Study Ideas – Plants

Spring is the perfect time to sprout seeds for the garden or flower bed. Before planting, take a closer look. Some seeds, like those of a mustard plant, are only as big as the tip of a pen. While other seeds, like those of a bean plant, may be as large as a coin! Seeds may be different sizes, shapes, and colors.

Faster growing seeds, like bean seeds, are a fun way to watch the growing process and to examine root structures. We like to start our seeds in a peat pellet greenhouse, but there are numerous mediums from which to choose.

Have you noticed any spring seeds outside? Seeds form after the flowers have are pollinated. Many plants and trees are producing seeds this time of year. Dandelions are one of the first plants to show off their seeds. Their fluffy round seed heads are quite easy to spot, and children love blowing the seed pods about. Remember to make a wish first!

Examine the soil! Whether you are out on the trail or in your garden, take a look at what’s under your feet. Soil comes in many forms from loamy, clay, sandy, chalky and silty. There are even organisms living in the soil!

Dissect a flower! Tulips, Crocus, Daffodils and many other flowers can be found in abundance this time of year. Why not take apart a flower and examine the inner working of the pistil, stigma, ovule, and stamens?

Be sure to keep your pocket microscope and nature journal handy, so you can jot down all of the interesting things you discover! You can also check out our 8 Tips for Nature Study for even more inspiration!

Easy Spring Nature Study Ideas – Creatures

Spring is a great time to look for birds! Many birds will be busy building nests. Why not catalog and tally up the different birds and bird nests you see?

Look for evidence of animals! Signs may include tracks, sounds, scat, and animal trails. You could even make it into a scavenger hunt! We like to bring these Take Along Guides to help us identify animal evidence.

Raise Tadpoles! You can usually find tadpoles near any slow moving or stagnate body of water like a pond, bucket of water or ditch. Just collect them with plenty of the water you found them in. Keep them in a large plastic tub or glass container (without the lid) away from direct sunlight. Change the water out periodically with more of the pond water or collected rain water. Watch as the tadpoles develop into frogs!

Raise Butterflies! We ordered a butterfly kit with a butterfly habitat one year and raised painted lady butterflies. It was awesome to watch them go through their metamorphosis! Since the butterfly habitat is reusable we now simply order the cup of butterfly caterpillars each year. The kids have yet to tire of raising and releasing butterflies.

With winter’s chill coming to an end, it’s time to get outside. I hope you won’t have long to wait before spring’s warmth and life call you outdoors.

How will you and your children explore nature this spring?

Easy Cookie Cutter Bird Feeders for Kids

February 16, 2017 By Erin Vincent

Written by Erin Vincent of Nourishing My Scholars.

What better way for children to take care of their neighborhood birds than with some easy cookie cutter bird feeders! We enjoy nature and nature studies all year round. You can check out my post 8 Tips for Nature Study to see how we love incorporating nature into our daily lives.

Easy Cookie Cutter Bird Feeders for Kids 6

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Nature study and bird study, in particular, is so much easier when it happens right in your own backyard! To be able to look out of your window and observe the beauty and habits of our feathered friends is both entertaining and educational.

Grab a sketch book and field guide and prepare to enjoy the sights while the birds enjoy this yummy treat!

Ingredients for Easy Cookie Cutter Bird Feeder

Cookie cutter bird feeders are easy to make, but they can take a bit of time to set. Follow these directions, and your kids will get to enjoy the hands-on experience of making these fun treats for the birds.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup water
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
3 tbsp. corn syrup
4 cups birdseed
Assorted cookie cutters/molds
Nonstick Spray or Cooking Oil
Drinking Straws, cut to size
Waxed Paper
Twine/ Ribbon

Easy Cookie Cutter Bird Feeders for Kids

Step 1: Mix flour, water, gelatin and corn syrup in a large mixing bowl. Stir until well-combined.

Step 2: Stir in birdseed, coating the seed with the flour mixture. This mixture gets extremely thick, so your kiddos may need a bit of help stirring.

Easy Cookie Cutter Bird Feeders for Kids 3

Step 3: Spray the cookie cutters with non-stick cooking spray or, as in our case, let your children wipe the cookie cutters down with cooking oil.

Step 4: Spoon the birdseed mixture into each mold. It was easier for the children to simply grab handfuls of the birdseed mixture than bother with the spoon. After their cookie cutter was filled, they pressed down on it to make the mixture as flat as possible.

Easy Cookie Cutter Bird Feeders for Kids 4

Step 5: Poke a hole through the center near the top of each birdseed mold, making sure it goes all the way through, leaving the straw in until the mixture is set.

Step 6: We left our birdseed molds to sit overnight. The next day we gently removed the cookie cutters and straws from our molds and set them on wax paper. Then we took a bit of twine (about 6 inches per mold) and tied it through the hole the straw had left.

Step 7: Hang on a favorite tree for the birds to enjoy!

Easy Cookie Cutter Bird Feeders for Kids 5

I also recommend keeping a bird guide or two handy so that you can identify your feathered visitors with your kids! Some of our favorites are:

Easy Cookie Cutter Bird Feeders for Kids

If you enjoy the cookie cutter bird feeders, you might want to try some DIY bird feeders made from recycled materials.

What are some of your family’s favorite ways to attract birds to your yard?

This post is linked to the Hip Homeschool Hop.

How to Preserve Fall Leaves

November 10, 2016 By Alicia Hutchinson

Written by Alicia Hutchinson of Learning Well Community.

The fall leaves in Minnesota are beautiful! Autumn afternoon walks are full of ooh’s and ahh’s, and we don’t want to see it end. To capture some of that fall beauty, the kids and I like to use a glycerine solution to preserve fall leaves.

The process was simple, but it takes several days, so be patient. Here’s what we did to preserve some of our favorite fall leaves.

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How to Preserve Fall Leaves

If you’re collecting colorful fall leaves from the ground, their stem shaft has already closed. It’s probably starting to dry and get brittle. You could always just press your leaves between some book pages and preserve them that way. However, a glycerine solution will preserve the leaves in a way that keeps them pliable and helps them maintain their vibrant colors for years to come.

Step 1: First, you need to open the stem shaft again. We just gave the stems a couple of taps with a hammer to open them up.

Note: We did our leaf preservation project with freshly fallen leaves that had not started to turn brittle yet.

Step 2: Make the preservation solution using two parts boiling water to one part glycerine. You can find glycerine in the health and beauty section of your drugstore or on Amazon.

While the water heats up, measure the glycerine. After the water comes to a boil, slowly and carefully add the glycerine and stir.

Step 3: Now, carefully submerge your leaves in the mixture. We used a shallow baking dish which worked great. Make sure to cover the leaves fully. We put all of ours into one bowl.

Now you have to be patient because the solution has to work its magic for 5-7 days.

We allowed our leaves to soak for five days, and they turned out great! They were all shiny and glossy after their week at the glycerine spa.

We laid them flat on a newspaper and left them to dry for a few hours. The leaves remained glossy even after they were dry. Now we can bend them, and they won’t crack and break into a million pieces. The color is preserved, and we can use them for decoration.

What to Do With Preserved Fall Leaves

Once you’ve preserved a collection of fall leaves, try some of these decorating ideas:

label them and display on your nature table for the season
write on them with pretty calligraphy and use as place cards at Thanksgiving
scatter them in the middle of your table and add candles for a seasonal centerpiece
tie or tape some to a string for a simple garland to hang on the fireplace
take them outside and try to find the trees from which they fell
attach them to packages to give a festive, seasonal gift

Enjoy the beautiful fall season before the weather gets too cold! Your preserved leaves will remind you of the lovely fall you enjoyed.

Do you have any creative ideas for what to do with preserved leaves?

5 Fun Nature Journal Entries for Autumn

September 5, 2016 By Guest Author

Written by Susan Williams of Education Possible.

Cooler temperatures and leaves changing colors are signs that autumn is on the way. Fall is the perfect time to get outdoors with your family to explore and observe. Adding new entries to a nature journal is a creative way for kids to document their discoveries.

5 Fun Nature Journal Entries for Autumn Nature Study

There are several easy ways for students to start a nature journal. Anything from a simple sketch pad to a fancy leather-bound book can serve as a nature journal. What will make the journal special are the unique entries your student includes throughout the years.

Here are five fun ideas for nature journal entries to capture the beauty of the autumn season.

1. Word Finds

On a page in the journal write words related to the season. Then, take a nature walk and look for items to write down for each letter in the word. For example:

Fern

Acorn

Lirope

Lizard

More words suggestions are apple, autumn, chilly, deciduous, foliage, leaves, pine cone, season, squirrel, etc.

2. Falling Leaves

Gather a variety of fallen leaves from the ground. Trace the leaves onto a page in your nature journal. When you get home, research to learn more about the leaf and make notes about some of the interesting characteristics of the tree it came from.

3. Seasonal Landscapes

Find a comfortable spot to sit and rest. Draw what you see around you such as flowers, trees, water, grass, and birds, and label the page, “Autumn.” On the next three pages of your journal draw what you think the same landscape will look like in the other seasons, labeling the drawings for “Winter,” “Spring,” and “Summer.” Or leave the pages blank and return to the same spot during the other seasons to add to your journal.

4. Animal Tales

Look for birds, insects, squirrels, and other creatures on your nature walks. Observe their actions and characteristics. In your journal write a poem or fictional story about an unusual animal you see. I still remember writing about “Sneaky Snake,” the crime-fighting garden snake I found when I was in middle school!

5. Weather Watcher

Create a weather log in your nature journal by tracking daily temperatures, winds, and precipitation. To make this project more fun, you can even make your own weather station instruments like a wind vane and rain gauge.

We hope your family enjoys exploring nature this season. Encourage your children to get creative as they observe and document the world around them using their nature journals.

What are some of your favorite ways to learn outdoors in the fall?

Susan Williams is a wife, mom of two teen homeschooled boys, and a co-founder of EducationPossible, a website for sharing creative, hands-on learning activities for middle school. As a veteran educator, she has taught in corporate, college, and various homeschool settings. Susan enjoys traveling with her family, sharing ideas with other moms, and helping her children explore the world around them (and as Floridians that usually includes spending time at one of their favorite worlds – Walt Disney World).