All Blog Posts (780)

I submit that there is no better way to spend time with your family than exploring nature and the outdoors. Rejuvenating fresh air, Infinite opportunities to both learn and teach, unlimited stones to overturn, pine cones and sticks to collect, and a world so vast it should take even the most intrepid little explorer hours to investigate before any redirection is required.

Camping is an…

http://www.dahndesign.com/2012/07/25/adventures-in-storytelling-illustrated-fiction-and-the-magic-of-reading/

Not long ago, I stood with my nine-year old daughter Jade on a rocky knoll over the ocean near our home. Minutes earlier, the sun’s orange disk had slipped below the horizon. In the distance, San Francisco began to glow. Much further away, starlit pinpoints began poking through the darkening dome overhead. We watched a clan of turkey vultures execute spiraling descents before settling for the night in a eucalyptus tree. As we began our own short descent toward home, it seemed as good a time…

Look What We Found!

by, Amy Butler

North Branch Nature Center

Montpelier, Vermont

The following conversation was recorded this spring in Harrison Field during an ECO day with children from Union Elementary School.  …

Hi, everyone. I am new to C&NNCONNECT. I am a landscape photographer based in the UK, but have been involved in many aspects of the environment in my life. Earlier this year I created Hug The Planet - websites for kids to upload images of their involvement in nature. As I am funding the entire, global project out of my shallow pockets I have so far only been able to create a HugThePlanet page on facebook and have also worked a deal with Flickr, without its own dedicated website. This is…

Ok -so I was surfing around on youtube and checking out some gardening links. I found some videos on straw bale gardening. Very cool idea. These would make a great kids garden. Maybe a small maze with straw bales and plants growing on the bales.  Maybe a little "playhouse" made of straw bales with little rooms ( no roof) and plants growing on the sides. Good project for schools and summer camps.  No digging , less muddy, very architectural with potential for design ideas!

http://www.dahndesign.com/2012/07/11/stopping-the-ape-and-moving-forward-to-nature/

For the second year in a row, the CLIF Kid Backyard Game of the Year Contest inspired kids from 6-12 to create the ultimate slow games, ones that can be played outdoors with simple or minimal equipment, like hula hoops, balls, or household items.

Last year's winner, 9-year-old Sara from Plaistow, N.H. (shown here with Julie Foudy, three-time Olympic…

Recently I attended a class about biodiversity and sustainability and where I had to create an outdoor atvivity for 5th grade students about "climate change & biodiversity".

I created a very simple activity that had great results.

I took the class to a garden area in school where they could find both deciduous and evergreens trees. Divided them into groups and gave each member a magnifying glass, a jar and a plastic bag.

Each group had to choose two trees of…

The Foot Whisperer & Therapeutic Gardens:  Holland & Germany…

“Pay attention to the birds.” That is what I say to my children, my students, and visitors who come to Barking Frog Farm. There is a lot to see if you tune in to their activity. Watch for clues. During the day birds eat, look for new food sources, build and repair nests, patrol their area for predators that need to be chased away. In the spring, they also lay and protect eggs, feed…

Well, here we are in yet another election year full of vitriolic demarcations of right from left, seemingly with little overlap. Once again, the looming dangers of global warming, failing ecosystems, and our overall unsustainabilty are lost amidst the rhetorical din of jobs and economy (as if these were somehow distinct from the aforementioned perils). Meanwhile, the chasm between humans and nature deepens.

Watching the national debates unfold, I find little to be positive…

June’s issue of Washington Parent Magazine features my lastest article on a unique opportunity for connecting kids to nature and their past. Dinosaur Park provides information on the fossil rich “Dinosaur Alley” of Maryland and the Washington DC area and opportunities for kids to discover evidence of our earliest native plants and animals. The Dinosaur Park preserves part of a geologic formation called the…

Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of responsibility, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of stewardship, the responsible management of resource use. In ecology, sustainability describes…

An essay about how one seed and one hummingbird feeder can change the world.   The two types of feeders spark the kind of observation that leads to discussions about bill adaptations, habits and foods; and can invite a child into the process of creating an ecologically-friendly…

Nevada Children's Outdoor Bill of Rights

Fourth-grade teachers at Lookout Mountain Elementary School in Chattanooga, Tenn., have implemented an informal writing program, EarthWrite, which they say encourages wonder and inspiration in the outdoors. According to teachers Susan Frankenberg and Cindy Jayne, the response of their students to EarthWrite is nothing short of remarkable...

Read more about EarthWrite at:  http://www.youroutdoorfamily.com.…

Rain, Snow, Sleet, and Cold: Why spending time in the outdoors in most conditions is important and healthy.…

The Forest Kindergarten model based on the German waldkindergartens is committed to flow learning and emergent curriculum. At Cedarsong Nature School, I make detailed notes in our nature journal about where the children's interest leads us each day and in the course of one month the curriculum emerges as follows:

Cedarsong Forest Kindergarten Newsletter - May 2012

 The sweet aroma of cottonwood infusing the forest air last month has been replaced by the delicate scent of the…