Encyclopedia

Check out The Encyclopedia of Life.

The Concord Monitor discusses its merits.

We have another hope for the encyclopedia. Most of today's children and youth, even those living in the country or where woods separate suburbs, suffer from what journalist Richard Louv dubbed "nature deficit disorder." Parental fear of the outdoors, and lives lived in front of computer screens or on playing fields, have robbed children of a wonder at and love of nature that has been part of the human psyche from the beginning.

Some Perspective and Good Deeds From the Northeast

Here's a Monday editorial from Great Barrington.

And our elementary school science teacher, Joseph Cadbury, made sure all of us took field trips to the Wissahickon, turning over every rock in the hillsides and stream bottoms. Louv suggests that most schools no longer have a science teacher who makes it his or her business to get pupils outside. School are discouraged from such pursuits by tight budgets or impending high stakes tests.

Here's more on some good work going on in Upstate New York.

"We put ourselves into the same places the animals live, the marginal spaces," Drake said. "We've actually seen deer and ... rabbits, because we've been in the brush. We go to the thickets."
The Tuesday after-school program at the West Village and Parkside Gardens apartment complexes can be transformative for participants, many of whom have little to no prior experience in the wild, Drake said.

I too had science teachers that would get us outside, and some of those classes had a big impact on me. One class, the Science of Survival, had us outside for weeks. It's funny though, I returned to my CT high school almost a decade ago to bring them a curriculum guide on Aldo Leopold that we had developed. I met the school principal and the field ecology teacher, and the poor guys didn't know who Leopold was. Teach field ecology and not know who Leopold is! That was disappointing, and this is in one of the top public schools in the country!? I won't say where to avoid them the embarrassment.

Snowflake Bentley

We have family that lives in Jericho Center, Vermont, so we're familiar with the work of Wilson Bentley, also known as Snowflake Bentley. Bentley "captured" and photographed more than 5,000 snowflakes, each on unique. Like birding or catching frogs, checking out snowflakes is a great way to connect kids with nature, especially when school is cancelled.

The Bentley Website says:

From the earliest memories of our childhood, many of us can remember hearing the phrase "no two snowflakes are alike". This discovery was made in the small rural town of Jericho, Vermont by Wilson A. Bentley (1865-1931).

Check out the Snowflake Bentley Site here. Lots of good info and links.