Skip to content

Latest posts

Uncategorized

Oysters are Our Friends

By W. George Scarlett, Image via Internet Archive Book Images Oysters lying side by side,Keeping back the ocean’s tide.Slurping food from water’s yuckThen spitting back where yuck gets stuck.Cleaning up the estuarySo fish might live and children swimAs shores keep their shorelines trim,And wonder comes to tarry.

Uncategorized

Salt Marsh Periwinkle Poem

By W. George Scarlett, Illustration by Angelina Lewis Salt marsh periwinkle safe when tide is out.But tide’s now rolling in with blue crabs all about.Up goes periwinkle climbing smooth cordgrass.Now those hungry blue crabs will have to swim on past.

Nature’s Cleanup Crew: The Remarkable World of Olly the Oyster

Review by Leah Harrigan of “Olly the Oyster Cleans the Bay” by Elaine Ann Allen, Illustrated by Kelli Nash  Exploring the importance of oyster reef habitats, Olly the Oyster Cleans the Bay introduces readers to the transformative power of marine life helpers. In the book, author Elaine Ann Ellen blends educational concepts about natural water purification…

Uncategorized

The Billion Oyster Project – Getting Kids Involved

The “Billion Oyster Project” in New York City is a model for getting children and youth involved in restoring nature and letting nature restore the planet. Here is one of many films documenting BOP’s impact not only on the New Harbor but also on the education of children and youth and their development as earth…

Uncategorized

Make Your Own Periwinkle Snail Habitat

By Leah Harrigan, image via Carolina Wildscapes (Adobe Stock) Children can see and feel the magic of ecosystems by creating a “Periwinkle Snail Habitat” using common household materials. This hands-on project will help them understand the role of snails in our environment while having some fun along the way. Materials Large glass or plastic container…

Uncategorized

A Journey of Life with Snails and Slugs

By Fangfang Xiao, translated by Qin Shu One morning, after a rain, teachers Yue and Qi found a small mollusk, without a shell, climbing on the osmanthus tree. They quickly drew children around and sparked a discussion. The next day, Zhou brought a book called Life Story in which everyone found the answer to the…

Uncategorized

When Pond Problems Call for Systems Thinking

By W. George Scarlett When there are pond problems, such as when fish are dying, it often takes systems thinking and high-level scientific investigation to figure out causes and what needs to be done.  That’s an unreachable goal for many children.  But with proper support, adolescents can become scientists finding cause in the combination of…

Uncategorized

Sorting Out Pond Stuff

By W. George Scarlett Image ©dimedrol68 / Adobe Stock As featured elsewhere on TES (see Collecting for Connecting to the Natural World), late childhood can bring a passion for collecting and sorting stuff, including stuff from the natural world.  And so, we can put that natural affinity for collecting and sorting (classifying) to work when…

Uncategorized

Book Review: Over and Under the Pond

Review by Hailey Swett, book by Kate Messner with art by Christopher Silas Neal | Ponds: what lovely and lively ecosystems! What child doesn’t love exploring a pond, searching for critters big and small? In her picture book Over and Under the Pond, Kate Messner takes young readers on a journey of exploration through a…

Uncategorized

When Nature Seems ‘Cruel’

By W. George Scarlett | Bugs sucking the blood of other bugs, hawks grabbing and tearing apart squirrels, coyotes howling after a kill – if ever someone gets sentimental about nature and speaks only of nature’s wonders, that person has missed something central about nature, namely, that nature works on a different ethic than that…

Uncategorized

Waterbug Poem

By W. George Scarlett | Waterbug, waterbug, always gliding / Never sinking, always sliding…

Uncategorized

Moving with Pond Life

By Layla Sastry | The following is an exercise that can be used with younger and older children to help them connect to and know life in and around ponds.

Uncategorized

To Know is to Wiggle

By W. George Scarlett | To know nature can be through touching, smelling, seeing – in short, through sensing.

Poop in the Sandpit

By Zhou Jiang and Ting Zhang | By Children in urban kindergartens lack opportunities to get close to nature. But with help from teachers, getting close to nature can still happen – as the following story illustrates. The story is about a kindergarten in the West Lake District, Hangzhou City, where poop in the…

Into the Woods: Review of “The Hike”

Review by Leah Harrigan | There’s something extraordinary that happens when a child steps out into the natural world, the possibility of exploration ahead of her. With each overturned leaf and puzzling new sight, there’s a momentum that propels curiosity forward. The Hike by Alison Farrell is an outdoor adventure story that follows three curious,…

The Chef’s Special Dough

By W. George Scarlett | I have sometimes wondered how came the stars, not to mention the moon and Mars. Are they someone’s leftover Christmas tree snow? Or perhaps they are mothballs – I really don’t know.

Uncategorized

When Nature is the Classroom

By Amy and Dan Warren | Our son, Lio, hops in the car at the end of a cold and damp school day. Rosy-cheeked and smeared with earth and ash from fort-building and fire-making, he reaches down to take off his boots and empty them of leaves, water, and mud. His pockets carry…

Uncategorized

Deep Entanglements: Children and Fungi

By John Hornstein | My mother was happiest when foraging for mushrooms. Being an immigrant from Germany, she had difficulty adjusting to life in rural Maine. Foraging became a way for her to stay connected to her childhood. It also connected her to something more primal, the natural world. As a child tagging along on…

Free eBook- Augario’s Adventures in Evaporating

By Allison Choi, illustrations by Kirsten Malsam | Anthropomorphizing to explain nature need not, indeed should not, be limited to explaining nonhuman animals. Even the elusive chemistry in evaporative cooling can become intuitively understood by children, if only we bring that chemistry alive — as Allison Choi and Kirsten Malstem’s story clearly illustrates.

Beyond Seahorses and Hermit Crabs: Eric Carle’s Biocentric Anthropomorphizing for Fostering Empathy and Care

Review by Leah Harrigan | There’s certainly something special about the works of Eric Carle (1929-2021), the American author and illustrator who left a legacy of more than 70 children’s books celebrated worldwide. The self-described “picture writer”, Carle gifted us his bright, iconic tissue-paper illustrations that have adorned bookshelves since the 1960s. If you’ve read…

Uncategorized

Letting “Mother Nature” be “Just Like Me”: On the Use of Anthropomorphizing

By W. George Scarlett | In E.B. White’s classic children’s book, Charlotte’s Webb, Charlotte, the spider, becomes the kind and smart friend of Wilbur, the pig. Charlotte saves Wilbur from the usual destiny of farm pigs by weaving into her web words praising Wilbur and making him famous among the surrounding humans.  But if that were all there…

Review: Nature Apps

Review by Joy Chi | The following article is a collection of reviews of smartphones apps that serve to help children and adults alike to connect with nature.

Uncategorized

Technology for Playful Learning

By Mitchel Resnick | In recent years, a growing number of educators and psychologists have expressed concern that computers are stifling children’s learning and creativity, engaging children in mindless interaction and passive consumption. They have a point: today, many computers are used in that way. But that needn’t be the case.

Video: Becoming Ruby

Watch this short film about the journey of mountain biker and artist Brooklyn Bell, directed by Dave Meyers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adLkZNd-EOg&t=1s

Uncategorized

Exploring the World on a Bicycle: Memories of Connecting to Nature

By Theo Klimstra | One of the striking differences between the Netherlands and most countries is the vast number of bikes that you’ll see everywhere. In the Netherlands, everybody rides bikes, partly because they are cheap to buy and cheap to maintain for commuting (no gas required) and partly because Dutch employers team up with…

Book Review: Bikes for Sale

Review by Joy Chi | In previous generations, bikes were functional vehicles utilized for transportation, recreation, and sport. However, their usefulness was often overshadowed by automobiles. In Bikes For Sale written by Carter Higgins and illustrated by Zachariah Ohora, the emphasis on bike culture is evidenced through two playful characters, Maurice and Lotta. An introduction…

Uncategorized

School Gardens in the City

By Jane Hirschi | Years ago, I spent an afternoon with a group of eighth-grade boys digging up potatoes. They were amazed to find potatoes growing underground and surprised by their almost peppery flavor when we cooked and ate them. More recently, I witnessed a third grader who often struggled when asked to speak…

Video: This Warthog took a trip to the Mongoose Spa

Video: Banded Brothers | Series 1 Episode 1 | BBC Featured image by Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons Editors note: It’s important that we all check for ticks and remove them from our bodies.  Here’s someone getting a lot of help to do just that – remove ticks from his…

Uncategorized

When Nature Gives You Ticks, Create a Tick Curriculum

By Robin Huntley and David Sobel | Start a conversation about using the natural environment, or taking learning outside, or studying the bobolinks in the meadow, and ticks start crawling through the recesses of school administrators’ and parents’ minds. Ticks and their associated diseases are perceived as a scourge across the northeastern United States, and…

Uncategorized

Collecting for Connecting to the Natural World

By Jack Ridge | This is a story about collecting. Not the kind of collecting that clutters our basements and garages because we can’t let go, but the kind of collecting that stimulates life-long curiosity for the natural world. This story is about the natural objects we collect, the ones we look upon with curiosity…

Uncategorized

Ecological Landscaping: Earth Stewardship for Everyone

By Doug Tallamy | If you live with at least some green around you, chances are you have never thought of space just outside and next to where you live as a wildlife preserve that represents the last opportunity we have for sustaining plants and animals that were once common throughout the U.S.. But that…

Book Review: Democracy for Dinosaurs

Review by Leah Harrigan | It’s never too early to start learning how to be an engaged citizen – just ask author Laurie Krasny Brown and illustrator Marc Brown, creators of Democracy for Dinosaurs: A Guide for Young Citizens. An introduction to civic values for young children, this book explores the important question of what…

Uncategorized

Overcoming Covid and Cold: Life in an Outdoor Pandemic Preschool

By Iris Ponte | I wake up in the morning, and the first thing I do is check the outdoor temperature. As a preschool educator, I used to think 30 degrees was cold. Not anymore. Our school has opened in 17 degrees, multiple times. We have learned to layer, eat warm foods in thermoses, and…

Uncategorized

What if You Could Email A Tree?

By Ashley Lin | If you don’t know the name of the tree outside your house or apartment (or don’t know if there is a tree outside your window), you’re not alone. Most people don’t think about finding nature when they look out their window at home or at their workplace, so they don’t see…

Book Review: The Hyena Scientist

Review by Marion Reynolds | Science journalist Sy Montgomery and photographer Nic Bishop’s latest addition to the Scientist in the Field series, The Hyena Scientist dispels myths and misunderstandings about the of true nature of the African spotted hyena, profiles the presence of women in science, and tells the story, through anecdotes and examples, of…

Humor for Climate and Social Transformation

By Janot Mendler de Suarez and Pablo Suarez | What does humor have to do with serious stuff like climate change and environmental justice? Short answer: everything. Most people associate ‘humor’ with laughter, fun, or jokes, but when we asked legendary cartoonist Bob Mankoff what he thinks of when thinking about humor, he looked us…

Uncategorized

When Young People Worry About Climate Change

By Maria Ojala | Many young people today worry about climate change and what is happening to our planet. And those who worry cope in very different ways. Some ways lead away from positive actions and earth stewardship, while other ways forge a foundation for positive actions and earth stewardship. So how do we discover…

Uncategorized

Featured Artist: Jimmy Rouse

Images and stories by Jimmy Rouse | “In the painting, those are my two grandchildren charging up the hill. The painting is a homage to an early painting hero of mine, Chaim Souttine. He was a Russian Jew who fled to Paris as a teenager because he was beaten in his village for making graven…

Uncategorized

Wonder and Earth Stewardship

By Lisa Sideris | The connection between wonder and children and childlike states is one we often take for granted. Yet wonder is also the province of scientists whose expert knowledge far exceeds that of the average layperson.

Uncategorized

Beyond Wonder and Care – Becoming a Green Thinker

By Tina Grotzer | I grew up in a rural environment with woods and streams all around me. Others would say that we were poor, but I never felt impoverished. I climbed trees, explored the pond, got stuck in the mud, and jumped onto the gnarled, moss-covered roots in the middle of the creek to…

From Pets to Pathways for Becoming Earth Stewards

By Megan Mueller |
What is it about our relationships with pets that make them so enduring, and how do they connect us to the wider, natural world – making it more likely that we will act as earth stewards? For many, experiences with pets are experiences akin to some of the most positive and…

Youth Climate Protests Around the World

By W. George Scarlett | Sometimes, the need is to act in a single-minded, straightforward way, a way designed to meet a crisis head-on and without delay, a way that says “Stop talking about ‘ought’ and start acting on ‘must’ “. But to do so means setting aside characteristic adult ways of being cautious and…

Uncategorized

Let’s Talk Climate Change

By W. George Scarlett | Let’s talk climate change. Why? It’s simple. To be an earth steward in the 21st century one must understand and do something about climate change – because climate change and its related problems constitute the single greatest threat to the health of our planet.

Uncategorized

Seining Along the Hudson: The Wonders in Hidden Biodiversity

By Melissa Wishner | Picture a stone-grey river. The river is wide—too wide to swim across. Under its glassy surface lives a thriving community of eels, snapping turtles, fish, crabs, and other plant and animal life. You wouldn’t think a river like this would be easy to ignore.

Uncategorized

Earth Stewards and the Development of Wonder

By W. George Scarlett | At four, the future primatologist Jane Goodall wondered how eggs come out of a hen—so she crawled into her family’s little henhouse to find out. After a while, a hen followed her in and gave her the answer. The little girl was mesmerized.