This August, as we enter the Dog Days of Summer, we are watching many wonderful changes occur out the window and in the gardens of our Learning Center. As always, pollinators are teeming, dragonflies are swarming, and birds are on the wing.
Observation can help us better appreciate and understand the world around us.
What’s Inside An explorer Pack
Each Explorer Pack is filled with tools that scientists use to make observations in the field. With the assistance of a hand lens, a guide book, and a pair of binoculars, the beauty and the changes of summer are at hand. These backpacks are filled with hands-on tools that will help kids and adults connect with nature in a fun and accessible way!
- Hand Lens or magnifying loop: From examining the veins of a leaf to discovering the mica in a piece of granite, a hand lens can bring the tiny into larger view.
- Binoculars: Useful in helping us to see what is far away!
- Small Containers: We don’t encourage removing any materials from Land Trust properties. However, it can sometimes be helpful to use a small container to gently capture and study an insect or invertebrate for a few minutes before returning it to its habitat.
- Guide Book(s): Field guides are books that contain lists and images of species (wildlife, fossils, geology, the night sky, etc.) with information that is designed to help the reader identify and understand the differences between similar species. There are several different guides at the Learning Center!
- Notebook & Pencil: Taking notes helps us remember better. Drawing or writing out descriptions can help us better see what we’re looking at. Whether you take a scrap of paper with you or you have a lifetime of journals, taking pencil to paper can help us become better observers and explorers.
Carry as little or as much as you want. There are loads of ways to explore and examine the world around us. Trying out an Explorer Pack will hopefully be the start of adventures.
Programs Designed to Explore
In our Exploring Westport Woods family walk series, we’ll explore the different way to use these tools, each week focusing on a different habitat of our flagship property, and utilizing a different tool from the Explorer Packs to observe and record nature.
Join us as we take on the second half of summer with these and other family programs:
Family Walks: Exploring Westport Woods
Full Sturgeon Moon Walk:
The Summer Sky at Night
Night walks encourage different observation skills.
August 8th at 7:30, Westport Woods
Learn the facts–and some fiction–about our local snakes and the habitats that support them.
August 12th at 4:30, Westport Woods
… and be sure to stop by our Learning Center to check out an Explorer Pack with its cool tools!