My favorite lesson of the weekly Journeys Outdoor School sessions was surprisingly one in which I had to work the least. I am not a slacker, nor am I advocating lackadaisical teaching—my next favorite lesson was taking students through the ropes course, in which I worked tirelessly to keep my group safe, energized, and engaged in a life-changing experience.
The pond ecology lesson at Grizzly Creek Ranch, however, provided something different, something difficult to achieve in education. I gave my students nets to find macro-invertebrates, bowls to be filled with water, a silly song about the parts of an insect–head, thorax, abdomen–and a directive to explore the pond. They did the rest. After a few moments, a pair of my students would inevitably shout, “Wow, Jeff, come look at this!” and I would rush over to share in their joy at finding some weird creepy crawly thing. Using a dichotomous key, they would identify the invertebrate, and I would either affirm their discovery or gently prod them towards a more realistic identification. They usually got the identification correct, and they usually remembered the parts of an insect, but the results from this lesson run deeper. Exploring the pond from the water’s edge, kneeling on the ground to get a better view of a water scorpion, mayfly larva, backstrider, or damselfly, these kids–boys and girls alike–were enthralled with nature. They were excited about discovering new things and, whether they would openly acknowledge it or not, they were acting like scientists.
After a season of working at Journeys Outdoor School, I hope my students remember the producer-herbivore-carnivore cycle and the adaptation bats use to find their prey. But, even more, I hope that I have given them a moment for themselves in nature, a spark that leads them on to new discoveries
~Jeff Dyer
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