E.4 How to Start a Nature Study
Podcast Episode #4 How to start a Nature Study
Discover the #1 tool for nature study, overcome obstacles, and get started in part 2 of a 3-part nature study series. Learn how to Nature study beyond the Journal in part 3 and Why Nature study in part 1. Discover an outline of the show shoppable links (some are affiliate) from the episode and if you scroll to the bottom, a full transcript.
The 3 Episodes in this series are:
E.4 How to Start a Nature Study
Outline of Episode:
1. You don’t need to be an artist to keep a nature journal
2. You can acquire skill through training and practice
3. Drawing isn’t the only way to keep a nature journal
4. Overcoming little attention spans
5. Overcoming “I’m too old for this”
6. Overcoming perfectionism
7. Overcoming “I’d rather do than write”
8. Overcoming “I’m not an artist- I’m a mathematician”
9. Getting Started- Materials
10. Get outside
11. Think like a scientist
12. Record observations
13. Digg deeper
14. Let them wonder
Books mentioned in the podcast:
Handbook of Nature Study by Ann Botsford Comstock
John Muir Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling by John Muir Laws
Other Resources Mentioned:
Rediscovering the Forgotten Benefits of Drawing Article by Jennifer Landon Mentioned in the first part of the podcast.
Option #1 for Nature journals if you like a blank page: Multimedia Sketch Pad (or any like this for a blank note pad- found at most stores)
Option #2 for Nature Journal if you like a little more structure to your open-ended journaling: Complete Nature Journal or Basic Nature Journal (A great place to start with little ones.)
Option #3 if you’d like a guided journal to tell you what to look for and how to record it: The Nature Connection: An outdoor workbook for kids, families, and classrooms
Nature Journal Complete
Nature Journal Basic
Writing tools:
A pencil is all you need but if you decide to watercolor instead I’d recommend starting with two quality brushes : #10 Round Brush and #6 Round Brush one other tip I picked up from John Muir Laws that I love is using a non-photo blue pencil for your underdrawing because it is easy to erase, doesn’t show like lead pencils and doesn’t interact with the watercolor or colored pencils.
Hiking trail app: AllTrails
Additional Materials/Resources to consider:
Brave Writer was mentioned in the podcast
John Muir Laws free curriculum
Blueprint Drawing/Watercolor Classes There are SO many high-quality classes with hours of instruction on these DVDs. They usually go on sale on black Friday for a killer price. They also have a subscription option where you have access to all their classes for a set amount per month or year. This is the best “learn how to paint” resource I’ve used, and I HIGHLY recommend it. There is so much to look through but this is the course I bought to learn how to watercolor and it went through materials, brush strokes and several projects: Startup Library Watercolor I like how she explains things very simply and clearly and that I can pause and work along with her. Another class I have my eye on is Illustrated Nature Journaling. I’m planning to get it during their next sale!
The BEST class I’ve found so far for an introduction to watercolor
The next Blueprint Drawing Class on my list!
This course was fun to take, and they offer tons of resources to progress your drawing skills. It is free but only occasionally has open enrollment through. Drawing Nature, Science, and Culture: Natural History Illustration 101
YouTube is a great option for learning to draw and the trick is to ask very specific questions like “Why do my watercolors bleed?” to pull up higher quality content.
A great intro book to drawing for any age is Art for kids: Drawing by Kathryn Temple
Lastly, I really like fillable water brush pens when taking notes in the field. They are like these but I can’t speak for these specific ones since these are not the ones I own (I couldn’t find the ones I own on amazon or Joann’s) Water Brush Pen Set
Transcript
Intro.
Your listening to episode 4 How to start Nature Study the 2nd in a 3-part intro to nature study series
In this episode, we will get into the brass tacks of adding this habit to your homeschool by using the #1 tool for nature study. This series was adapted from a conference class that I taught on the subject that had a lot of visual aids and examples of resources. I know you’ll get value from the podcast as I lay out exactly how to get started but if you’d like to see the books, tools, and resources mentioned you can find it all in the show notes.
Leonardo Da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Marie Curie, Mary Kingsley, Thomas Edison, Lewis and Clark, and MANY other explorers, world leaders, and scientists kept a notebook of their observations, ideas, and experiences with the natural world. These books are sometimes called field notes, a pocket notebook, adventure log, diary, natural history logs, botanical illustrations, and are most commonly referred to in our circles as nature journals.
Now if you are having a minor anxiety attack as you picture the breathtaking pages you’ve seen on Instagram, take a breath. And check out my pages lol seriously though my art continues to improve but Whether you are an artist or not I have great news for you!
Jennifer Landon, a biological illustration professor at North Carolina State University says “The abilities to see without bias and to focus on detail and pattern require training, not talent”. I read a GREAT article on the importance of the lost skill of drawing written by her. She is a biology professor who is reviving the merit of drawing as a WAY to learn because, as she says, “When we draw, we see things we’d otherwise overlook”. Students in her class learn how to SEE and in turn how to draw. She does this for professional scientists but a lot of information we have on natural history comes from nature journals of citizen scientists or amateur naturalists who just took good notes on what they saw when they saw it.
Charlotte Mason further saw the value in drawing when she said “It is only what we have truly seen that we can truly reproduce” Drawing is a skill of learning how to see, a form of expression, and a way to strengthen our hand mind connection.
In Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers” Which is one of my absolute favorites! A must-read. He talks about the rule of 10,000. How you can become a master of ANYTHING you spend 10,000 hours on then goes on to offer example after example of where this was proven true. Now to spend 10,000 hours on nature journaling would take years of dedicated work. Yet if you spend two lessons a week working on drawing one lesson and one keeping a nature journal in the course of the next year you may spend 192 hours developing your ability to see and the technical skills you need to train your hand to use your tools. How much better could you think you could draw after 192 hours of practice? After a year you’ll see a DRAMATIC improvement and could potentially develop mastery over the course of your life. The habit will cumulate over time and the really great thing about this type of illustration is that it requires no creativity. You can literally just strive to draw what is in front of you in the most accurate way and apply principles of art to your work. It is a skill you can acquire not just a gift some have that some do not.
Having no art background, myself, this was still daunting, so I have found some amazing resources I’d like to share with you in the show notes. But the basic idea is to learn the fundamentals of drawing with a drawing lesson each week then put those fundamentals to use by practicing in your nature journal. Adding these two blocks to your schedule will greatly improve drawing skills and nature journaling confidence.
For those who don’t strive to be an artist or are not convinced of the value of drawing there are still many other ways to reap the other benefits of this habit. In volume 1 Charlotte Mason said, “We are all meant to be naturalist, each in their own degree.”
Some of the younger kids are just not yet interested in this work (as their hands and attentions may be underdeveloped) older kids- if they have not built the habit of nature journaling or developed the skill of drawing may be off-put by having to draw what they see like their younger siblings, some of the perfectionist kids my feel insecure about their art or misspellings, kinesthetic learners may prefer to allow the caterpillar to crawl all over their hand and forget their notebook all together, analytical kids who prefer math to art will be less than enthused.
There are always going to be obstacles to everything we do in our children’s education. In these instances, I like to step back and say Why am I doing this? What do I hope to cultivate here?
In the Handbook of Nature Study (The big bible looking book you hear people talk about all the time) Anny Botsford Comstock says, “If nature-study as taught, does not make the child love nature and the out of doors, then it should cease”.
My main objectives of nature study are to cultivate a love of nature in my children, to spark their curiosity, help them to really look at the world and develop the skill of observation and scientific thinking.
If a nature journal does not make them love nature and there are tears every time it is pulled out, then they shouldn’t keep one- but- we still go outside because a nature journal is just a tool to meet my objective and if the tool doesn’t suit the purpose leave it on the shelf.
There are also ways around many of these objections. For younger kids I let them participate when they choose to. It is available to them, but I don’t ask them to keep a nature journal or prompt them to write. This way when they see you or their older siblings, they can start training for the work on their terms.
The best way to inspire older kids is to do it yourself so they can see that this is serious work and not just child’s play and that you view it as a worthwhile use of your adult time as well. It is a lot harder to start a habit when they are older though and have already convinced themselves they can’t draw so building it a part of your family culture from the early years really does make a big difference over time.
For perfectionist kids, I make sure to show them my mistakes or examples of work progressing overtime. Help them to focus on what they noticed not what they produced and remind them that this is one of those skills that while frustrating when we can’t make it look like it does in our head needs to be learned over time. They can do hard things and mistakes are good because that’s how we learn.
Kinesthetic learners ARE LEARNING when they are doing and may not need the nature journal to concrete that knowledge. If you would like to include it as part of their education by providing them with different mediums (like watercolors, pastels, clay sculptures) and experiences (leaf rubbings, measuring rainfall, and spore prints) as they journal will keep them more engaged.
There are many ways to keep a nature journal too that are not artsy in any way. In fact, the nature journals that you have as examples in a Charlotte Mason education are mostly written narratives with a few sketches for reference.
A great nature journal will include many forms of recording information: like lists, written narrations/observations/questions, predictions, measurements, calendars, tally marks, recording changes over time.
Math, language, and art can be used to express one’s impressions and a journal can be kept in any style that fits its maker. A nature journal is not just for the artist or dreamy tree hugger. It can be for the adventurer, the scientist, the curious, the poet, the data collectors, and introspectors and connectors.
The value in keeping the notebook is in NOTICING the world around you and writing it down. It’s in the noticing that we develop our attention and in the writing it down that we concrete our found knowledge as our own.
A final note on the individual’s journal is that a nature journal is like a personal diary. It was not designed to be criticized and corrected. If they share it with you and you find their entries lacking encourage them next time with questions before they record but don’t EVER take a red line to their work. The spirit in which they make their notes is FAR more important than the information they cover.
So now you are ready to start nature journaling. You are convinced of its value, you’ve learned the basics of drawing, you figured out how to overcome obstacles and objections, let’s get started.
1. The first thing you’ll need is a notebook. Some people like to use multimedia paper notebooks that are completely blank inside and open for creativity. To others a blank page is daunting and they like something a little more structured with defined places for their observations. Still, others like guided notebooks that provide instruction and outline what they are to observe when they go out as well as how to record it. I have examples of each in the show notes. Elements you’ll want to include in your entries regardless of your nature journal-style are: The date, location, and weather of the observations so you have context as you look back on your entries.
2. The next thing you’ll need is some writing tools: There are SO MANY other tools that you can use. But all you need aside from a notebook for record-keeping is a pencil. Many like the idea of brush drawing (Which is a whole other topic to dive into) but to do this you are basically dry brushing (or nearly dry brushing) watercolor. I would recommend using a quality brush if you are going to do this, so they get the feel for using real tools and don’t get a distaste for it before they even begin. You don’t need many brushes to get started.
3. With your notebook, writing utensil and appropriate gear, it’s time to go outside. Some ways you can make this happen are to:
· Hike. You can find nearby trails through groups on Facebook, or apps like “AllTrails”.
· You could stop somewhere for the afternoon and explore in one place like a, river, campsite, or sand dunes.
· Bringing nature inside is fun as you spend more time capturing the details of the lily in a vase while you draw it.
· Go to a Zoo, Aquarium, Bird Reserve, Butterfly Habitat, or the like. to observe some of the less common animals in your area and consult an expert on a topic you are curious about.
· Explore fossils or press flowers.
· Have a mini field lesson like watching a spider catch prey in its web and talk about how it digests its food.
· Have a fish tank, bird feeder, pet, farm animals, ant farm, or a beehive. So they can watch these animals over time and become more closely acquainted with their habits and natures.
· You can Look for specific things like tracks, rocks, mushrooms, etc.
4. Once you are out there help them learn to see and think like a scientist. “I notice, I wonder, It reminds me of” are three key phrases Jon Muir Laws author of “John Muir Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling” suggests when making a journal entry. Encourage them to look closer or think deeper by asking questions while they are observing to help direct their attention to a certain detail or interaction or after they tell you what they saw (but before recording it) to draw out closer inspection, deeper thought, or more detailed recollection. Questions like: How do you think they stay in that formation? What color was its stem? How does it attach to the tree? How long did it hoover? How many ducks did you see? What was the general shape of its tail? What do you think we could learn about where it lives from the shape of its feet? What is in the pellet? What is under that rock? How many petals does it have? Do you think it migrates or adapts for winter? Why do you think…? If you were to guess…? Have you seen other animals that dig in the ground like that? What does it do with a nose that long? How would ears with dark tips serve them? How has the tree changed since the last time we were here? If…then…? After modeling examples of questioning encourage them to come up with questions of their own.
5. Now that you have them looking closely at things and asking questions, they can record their observations. As mentioned before, they can draw, chart, list, write, measure, map. They can write questions, guess answers “Could it be… Maybe… What if…” If they cannot write efficiently and comfortably for themselves have them write an appropriate amount ( for little guys it could be none at all, one keyword, maybe they can copy a sentence from you, or write a sentence of their own creation, etc) then write out their narration for them so they have their own words to look back on later. As Brave Writer author Julie Bogart stresses, recording their words is powerful. It shows them their words have value and their expressions are important enough to write down and remember and make them want to provide more thoughtful descriptions. Recording observations is best in the field so that they can capture the object of their attention from many angles, using many senses. They’ll be able to get a feel for an animal’s behavior and movement or to physically handle the plant and notice small details they may forget if recording from memory later. It also helps to see animals and plants interacting with their environment and many plants will wilt or discolor soon after being removed from it. I totally recognize how hard this can be in difficult weather or with little ones I tow so if you can’t because of conditions or time constraints take a picture or bring a sample home to help with recall.
6. Having made your observations, it is time to dig deeper. Stopping at the recording stage is great if you want to build the habit but if you want to grow in your understanding of nature more quickly can you can discover it for yourselves through observation or if you want to say, avoid poisonous plants it is helpful to look to outside sources for further information. Also, in building this habit you’ll inevitably end up having exciting experiences. For example, let’s say you find a badger. Imagine looking out your back window and seeing one for the first time. It would be like the first snow of the year. PANDAMONIUM. It may end up consuming your family in interest and excitement. To where nothing else gets done for that part of the day and you spend it looking up youtube videos and checking out books about badgers from the library. It is fun to whip out Google and further information can spur deeper inquiry or investment into what you are doing. I know that knowing the names of common birds has helped my children get excited when pointing them out to each other and feel familiar with them like old friends.
a. I amazed my son with all the ways we could find out the answer to is a question one day when he surprised me with the question “Do chickens eat corndogs?” First, we looked at all the books we had at home about birds- which were not many- then we went to the library for more. We found out that chickens were omnivores, but he wanted to be sure they ate corndogs. So we went and watched chickens at a neighbor’s house down the road to see if we could find out by observing the chickens, but they were not eating corndogs and she wasn’t around to ask. So, we called his aunt who has chickens to ask an expert, she told us they probably would. With our burning desire to know, we asked her to try feeding a corndog to a chicken next time she had the chance. It just so happened that her kids had some left-over corndogs for lunch so after a quick trip to the pen, learning through experience, we are happy to announce that chickens do indeed eat corn dogs. The point of this silly story is to show that Google isn’t our only source and it’s fun to find our answers in quality nonfiction books, field guides, living books, experimenting, and talking to an expert. One of Charlotte Mason’s best suggestions on digging deeper is to give mini-lessons separate from field time or to add nature study books into your read-aloud rotation. This way they can make connections on their own and spark excitement for nature study ideas like spiders after reading Charlotte’s Web for example.
7. Conversely, there are times it is good to let them wonder. So, when they come across the answer in a book or article later, they’ll get the thrill of learning something they have always wondered about. They’ll have mysteries to mull over in their mind and may surprise themselves with the answers they can discover from their own observations or inferences. To not know something is not a problem! It is what has propelled humankind to search, discover, and invent since the beginning of time and is the cradle of curiosity.
This week we spoke about nature journaling as a tool for nature study but there are other great ways to incorporate nature study into your life and we will touch on those in our last of the Intro to Nature Study series “Beyond the Nature Journal” next week.
I hope to see you next episode, and if you are enjoying the podcast please rate and review it on your favorite podcasting app. Until then- stay curious.