Creating a homeschool nature study atmosphere does not need to be difficult, dirty, or uncomfortable. In fact, the best nature study is done without much effort and is guided by your child’s interest in topics that come along.
The nature study we talk about here is meant to be simple, a constant vigilance for something to be interested in right in your own neighborhood.
Creating a Homeschool Nature Study Atmosphere – It Starts With You
Nature Study- You can do this and your children will thank you. That really is my main message for this post and this Homeschool Nature Study website.
Nature Study Close to Home
Traveling to national parks can be a goal for everyone and I feel so very blessed to live in a part of the county where they are at my fingertips. But your own backyard can produce meaningful nature study if you are aware of things that come along…you need to be watching and listening.
No Need for Homeschool Group Learning
Participating in nature clubs can be a wonderful experience for a nature study atmosphere but having a few minutes with just your own kids outside each week can be just as wonderful.
Be Flexible With Your Time
Focusing on one nature study topic gives your family a full picture of that aspect of nature but don’t miss out on other subjects that come around because they are not on topic. Take a detour if needed and remember that nature study should be a life-long endeavor.
I have observed that families that make nature study a consistent part of their everyday life are the ones that feel the most satisfaction. Honestly, it warms my heart to see and hear about the times where families have an opportunity arise and they drop everything to pursue the learning more. A spider in a web, a bird’s song, the weather, rocks in pockets….take a few minutes to share it with your children.
You may be surprised how your attitude changes with knowledge.
In the end, what matters most is the way you view nature. Children are very keen observers and they will know when you are not excited about something. I can’t say I am always excited about every nature study topic…snakes and fish come to mind…but I do try to share my passion for learning new things and encourage my children to learn more about topics of interest. Funny thing is that once you start learning about things like snakes, the more interesting they become. The closer you look at a fish, the more beautiful it is.
Join us in Homeschool Nature Study Membership for a NEW Outdoor Hour Challenge each Friday!
You will find encouragement and resources to get your nature study atmosphere started. It is all done for you. Bring the Handbook of Nature Study to life in your homeschool!
Out of School and Into Nature: The Anna Comstock Story is a beautiful picture book biography about the author of The Handbook of Nature Study. Anna Botsford Comstock was passionate about children getting out of the classroom and into nature to learn first hand about our beautiful world.
Photos by Amy Law
“From the time she was no higher than a daisy, Anna was wild about nature.”
Suzanne Slade
One of the most natural ways for people to learn is through story. This sweetly illustrated biography of Anna Comstock gives a glimpse into the life of the woman who wrote the wonderful book The Handbook of Nature Study. Knowing more about her life makes her writing even more special! – my friend, Amy Law.
Out of School and Into Nature: The Anna Comstock Story is a lovely book written by Suzanne Slade and beautifully illustrated by Jessica Lanan.
The Anna Comstock Story Picture Book Biography Review
“This picture book biography examines the life and career of naturalist and artist Anna Comstock (1854-1930), who defied social conventions and pursued the study of science. From the time she was a young girl, Anna was fascinated by the natural world. She loved exploring outdoors, examining wildlife and learning nature’s secrets. From watching the teamwork of marching ants to following the constellations in the sky, Anna observed it all. And her interest only increased as she grew older and attended Cornell University. There she continued her studies, pushing back against the common belief of the day that implied science was a man’s pursuit.
Eventually, Anna became known as a nature expert, pioneering a movement to encourage schools to conduct science and nature classes for children outdoors, thereby increasing students’ interest in nature. In following her passion, this remarkable woman blazed a trail for female scientists today.” –Out of School and Into Nature: The Anna Comstock Story
“The nature story is never finished. There is not a weed or an insect or a tree so common that the child by observing carefully, may not see things never yet recorded.”
-Anna Comstock
Here at Homeschool Nature Study, we highly recommend this book for your homeschool! It is a wonderful way to learn all about – and be inspired by – the author of the Handbook of Nature Study. You might also like our Anna Botsford Comstock Quotes for Nature Lovers and Last Child in the Woods.
Learn More About The Handbook of Nature Study for Your Homeschool
We have some great resources for learning what The Handbook of Nature Study is all about:
You might also like my review of a Charlotte Mason Picture Book biography: The Teacher Who Revealed Worlds of Wonder – on our sister site, The Curriculum Choice. Charlotte Mason adored nature study!
My Homeschool Nature Book Report
In Homeschool Nature Study membership, you will find a printable nature book report page under your Nature Journaling course. Use this when you enjoy the Anna Comstock Story or any other nature book!
Enjoy these Anna Botsford Comstock Quotes for nature lovers! Anna Botsford Comstock is the author of The Handbook of Nature Study. The Handbook is a staple in the Outdoor Hour Challenges we share. This is a wonderful reference guide for you, the homeschool teacher to use. We show you how!
Anna Botsford Comstock Quotes for Nature Lovers
Nature study is, despite all discussions and perversions, a study of nature; it consists of simple, truthful observations that may, like beads on a string, finally be threaded upon the understanding and thus held together as a logical and harmonious whole.
Anna Botsford Comstock, The Handbook of Nature Study
The Teaching of Nature Study– …the object of the nature-study teacher should be to cultivate in the children powers of accurate observation and to build up within them understanding.
The Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock
Every parent interested in introducing nature study to their children needs to read Part 1 of the Handbook of Nature Study. Although the book itself is hundreds of pages long, the first twenty-four pages are golden and a must read. There are so many gems of wisdom contained within those few pages that you don’t want to miss.
First, but not most important, nature-study gives the child practical and helpful knowledge. It makes him familiar with nature’s ways and forces, so that he is not so helpless in the presence of natural misfortune and disasters.
It is a mistake to think that a half day is necessary for a field lesson (nature walk), since a very efficient field trip may be made during the ten or fifteen minutes at recess, if it is well planned.
The Handbook of Nature Study
There is a reason she is included in National Wildlife’s Conservation Hall of Fame. Her words are as valuable and relevant today as they were back at the turn of the 20th century. I invite you to read her words and be encouraged to include an outdoor life in your family’s week.
She who opens her eyes and her heart nature-ward even once a week finds nature study in the schoolroom a delight and an abiding joy… She finds, first of all, companionship with her children; and second, she finds that without planning or going on a far voyage, she has found health and strength.
The Handbook of Nature Study
Nature study cultivates in the child a love of the beautiful; it brings to him early a perception of color, form and music.
The Handbook of Nature Study
Nature study cultivates the child’s imagination since there are so many wonderful and true stories that he may read with his own eyes.
Our family made great memories together one year while noticing and studying Queen Anne’s lace throughout the seasons. Enjoy this beautiful Queen Anne’s lace nature study for your homeschool and see what you notice in each season too!
If you don’t have any Queen Anne’s Lace to observe in person, choose two other neighborhood weeds to study and compare using the ideas in the challenge.
Homeschool Nature Study members will find the suggestions in this challenge a great help in learning about this common wildflower. (Some call it a weed, but I prefer to think of it as a wildflower!) Members: Find this challenge in your Summer Continues Outdoor Hour Challenge curriculum ebook.
Queen Anne’s Lace Nature Study
I suppose it’s the new awareness we have from last year’s summer study of Queen Anne’s lace. Or it could be recent rains. Or it could be that we didn’t really start looking for Queen Anne’s lace until late August of last year. Or it could be a combination of all those factors. Which, likely, it is.
It’s abundant. We point and yell, “Look!” everywhere we drive. Lace lines the roadsides to the north Georgia mountains where we trekked last week. Lacey patches are right across the street – almost as tall as Middle Girl.
“Nature study cultivates in the child a love of the beautiful…”
~ Anna Botsford Comstock, The Teaching of Nature Study
(Above photos of her taken with my phone when we quick pulled off the road).
And Queen Anne’s lace thrilled us in the usual spot we checked back in spring. When we went on a family walk that Sunday night before Memorial Day – there it was!
Ready for the picking.
We scooped a few blooms and brought them home to study up close. To sketch.
We also found a beautiful robin’s egg, right in the middle of the grass, while on our walk. We figured the recent winds and storms may have blown it out of its nest.
Our up close studies helped us appreciate. As I sketched my flower, I noticed the hundreds of little, tiny flowers…
…the umbrella looking underneath, the pink tinges of a young blossom.
The children appreciated the certain color of green, the hairy stems, the dot in the center.
“The chief aim of this volume is to encourage investigation rather than to give information.”
~ Handbook of Nature Study
During sketching we noticed that the outside flower clusters open first, just as the Handbook of Nature Study says.
Queen Anne’s lace makes this mama happy. It reminds me of childhood.
Homeschool Nature Study for Your Family
Join us this summer! Enjoy some deliberate delight with nature walks and simple, joyful learning.
Just how to include homeschool nature study as part of high school biology? Here you will find a break down of nature study suggestions and accompanying resources for each module of your homeschool biology lessons. I really think it depends on the family and how much nature study you have time to fit in with your high school age children.
Homeschool Nature Study and High School Biology
There are two ways to approach homeschool nature study with high school biology. 1. Start with nature study and supplement with a text. 2. Use a text and supplement with nature study.
If you decide on approach number one, take each area of focus in the Outdoor Hour Challenge and add in supplemental information from a textbook.
Please note that affiliate links are included in our recommendations below. Please see our disclosure policy.
Using Apologia Exploring Creation with Biology
OH Challenge: Garden Plants =Text Module 8 and 15
OH Challenge: Insects =Text Module 3 and 12
OH Challenge: Trees =Text Module 14
OH Challenge: Mammals =Text Module 10 and 16
OH Challenge: Flowerless Plants =Text Module 4 and 14
OH Challenge: Birds =Text Module 16
OH Challenge: Crop Plants =Text Module 8 and 15
For the second option, here is how I enhanced the Apologia biology text with nature study ideas…many of these ideas are on my Biology Squidoo Lens.
Module 2:Microbiology and Homeschool Biology Pond Study
Read Microbe Hunters, chapter 2 Spallanzani and chapter 3 Pasteur Start a pond study to complement the study of microscopic organisms-protozoa Use A Golden Guide to Pond Life Read biography of Louis Pasteur Field trip to a pond: Complete nature journal pages for things observed in real life.
Handbook of Nature Study section on insects of the brook and pond Examine pond water under the microscope. Complete nature journal pages on pond insects you observe.
Module 4: High School Biology Nature Study Focus on Mushrooms and Other Fungi
Work with yeast Work with molds There are some ideas for study in the flowerless plants section of the Handbook of Nature Study. Take a nature walk to look for mushrooms and then complete nature journal pages for each one identified.
Modules 5-7: During These Modules We Used Local Field Guides to Identify Various Subjects From Our Nature Walks Each Week
The Biology Coloring Bookby Robert Griffin-color appropriate pages to help visualize the abstract concepts in these modules
Module 8: Gardeningfor High School Biology
Growing pea plants to support Mendelian genetic study (just for fun). Read a biography of Gregor Mendel. (The picture book Gregor Mendel: The Friar Who Grew Peaslooks like a wonderful way to include younger students). Grow radishes as part of experiment 8.4 Worked on a garden plan for the following summer.
Module 9: Homeschool Rocks and MineralsStudy
Read a biography of Charles Darwin Handbook of Nature Study section on rocks and minerals Using a field guide we identified several local rocks and made nature journal entries for each one.
Module 10: MammalsStudy for High School Biology
Identify a local mammal and then draw where it fits in the food web. Learn about your local watershed and then diagram it or draw a map for your journal. Complete nature journal entries for mammals observed during this module.
Dissection of an earthworm Nature study focus on Invertebrates-garden snails, earthworms Handbook of Nature Study section on invertebrate animals other than insects Complete nature journal entries for invertebrates observed during our Outdoor Hour time Complete a one small square activity and look for invertebrates or signs of invertebrates in your own garden or yard.
Nature study focus on arachnida (spiders) and/or insects and/or lepidoptera Dissection of a crayfish Handbook of Nature Study section on insects Complete nature journal entries for insects observed during our Outdoor Hour time.
Module 13: Amphibiansand Fishes
Dissection of a perch and a frog Nature study focus on amphibians Handbook of Nature Study section on fishes Handbook of Nature Study section on amphibians Keep an aquarium and use the Handbook of Nature Study suggestions for observations.
Collect leaf samples and make a pressed leaf collection Nature study focus on flowerless plants Handbook of Nature Study section on flowerless plants
Module 15: Garden Flowers and Seeds
Insectivorous plants-observe a Venus Flytrap or Sundew Nature study focus on garden flowers-parts of a flower Collect and press flowers Germinate seeds Handbook of Nature Study section on plants/garden flowers Start a seasonal tree study for a tree in your own yard
Module 16: High School Biology Nature Study Focus on Birds, Reptiles or Mammals
Handbook of Nature Study section on birds Handbook of Nature Study section on reptiles Handbook of Nature Study section on mammals Keep a pet and make observations based on suggestions in the Handbook of Nature Study. Hang a birdfeeder and keep a log of birds that visit. Go bird watching and make journal entries for each bird you identify.
You can see how you can take an idea and then expand on it using nature study. If you use the basic ideas I have illustrated with the biology topics, you can make a study of nature high school level. Keep everything relevant to your local area and it will be a joy to work on each week. Your family will learn so much together as part of the Outdoor Hour Challenges.
SaMore Resources For Your Homeschool High School Biology and Nature Study
What is the Great Sunflower Project? This is a citizen science activity that you can participate in with your children. If you can grow a sunflower (or selected other flowers), you can join the project with just a few minutes invested later this summer.
Great Sunflower Projectfor Your Homeschool
Is the Great Sunflower Project difficult?
The basic idea for this activity is to sit quietly and observe any bees that visit your sunflower. This is a perfect summer nature study project for families with children of all ages.
What is the Sunflower Nature Study time commitment?
Participants are asked to make three observations of at least 5 minutes each. That’s it! Of course, you can participate more than that if your kids enjoy counting bees.
Why we count beesas part of the Great Sunflower Project
The decline in bees affects everyone! This project helps collect data for scientists to use to track the bee population. If you would like to read more, click over to the website: Great Sunflower Project.
Interested in more information?
Here’s a sunflower nature study video on YouTube to go with your sunflower time.
I just planted my sunflower seeds for my summer garden. I purchased my Lemon Queen sunflowers from Renee’s Garden. Lemon Queen is the variety of flower preferred by the Great Sunflower Project. These are beautiful yellow sunflowers with lots of pollen.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask me in a comment or in an email.
Combine your sunflower nature study with this citizen science project. There are several great nature study ideas in Homeschool Nature Study membership.
More Resources For Homeschool Nature Study
For even more homeschool nature study ideas, join us in Homeschool Nature Study membership! You’ll receive new ideas each and every week that require little or no prep – all bringing the Handbook of Nature Study to life in your homeschool!
Looking for ways to encourage your child to explore things in nature? Using a magnifying lens in homeschool nature study is not only fun for children but it helps them see more clearly the wonderful world of objects we have all around us. Try one of the ideas below to help your child get started making careful observations of natural items.
5 Ways to Use Your Magnifying Lens in Homeschool Nature Study
“Adults should realize the the most valuable thing children can learn is what they discover themselves about the world they live in. Once they experience first-hand the wonder of nature, they will want to make nature observation a life-long habit.”
Charlotte Mason, Volume 1, page 61
#1 – Nature Station With a Magnifying Lens
Create a magnifying glass station with natural items either indoors or outdoors. Collect a few things to have on hand to start but them encourage your child to find a few of their own while outdoors playing or during a nature walk.
#2 –Square Foot Nature Study
Use your magnifying lens in homeschool for a square foot study. There are plenty of ideas here on my blog to help you get started. You can follow-up with this entry: Small Square Study-Living vs. Non-Living.
#3 – Examine Insects With a Magnifying Lens
Collect a few insects to examine close up with your magnifying lens. Look for dead insects in window sills, in the garden, or in spider webs. If you can capture a live insect and put it in a clear container, use the magnifying lens to get a closer look. Have your child observe closely the wings, the legs, the antennae, or the eyes of insects using a magnifying lens. Another tip is to place the insect on a mirror and then you can see the underside easily.
#4 –Create a New Level of Tree Homeschool Nature Study
As part of a tree study, use your magnifying lens to examine the bark, the leaves, and the cones or acorns of a tree in your yard or neighborhood. You can also use the magnifying lens to compare two trees with careful observations.
#5 – Use the Outdoor Hour Challenge Homeschool Nature Study Magnifying Lens Activity
Discover the wonder of ordinary objects using this magnifying lens in homeschool nature study activity. Use the suggestions on the page to spark some ideas for objects to collect and observe. There is a place to record a few sketches and some follow-up thoughts if your child is interested in keeping a record of their magnifying lens activity.
Homeschool Nature Study Activities
Find this activity in Challenge 8 Getting Started in Homeschool Nature Study Guide available in membership and HERE.
A book can transform your thinking completely or it can validate what you have experienced in your own life. Some books do both, like Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv. This is a must read book for all homeschool families who are endeavoring to expose their children to the natural world on a regular basis.
Note: affiliate links are included.
Last Child in the Woods
“There is a real world, beyond the glass, for children who look, for those whose parents encourage them to truly see.”
Richard Louv
We all know he is right. Children are just not getting outside for free play and even sadder they are not even wanting to be outdoors anymore. Sometimes the parent is too afraid to allow them the freedom to roam outside or sometimes it is the lack of availability of an appropriate outdoor space that is the cause. Either way, it is a sad world when children are living indoors most of their days.
Last Child In The Woods gives solid reasons and then practical ideas for restoring this nature play time for our children. Also, there is a section that talks about children that perhaps have the “eighth intelligence” which is the child whose learning style is that of a Naturalist type. Louv lists descriptions of children that have this specific learning style which you may find helpful in understanding just how to help your child with this type of intelligence.
Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder
I will list a few teaser points from the book that I have highlighted in my copy of the book that I think apply to what we do here at Homeschool Nature Study with the Outdoor Hour Challenge.
“…during the nineteenth century, nature study, as it was called, dominated elementary school science teaching. Now that nature study has been largely shoved aside by the technological advances of the twentieth century, an increasing number of educators have come to believe that technically oriented, textbook-based science education is failing.”
“By expressing interest or even awe at the march of ants across these elfin forests, we send our children a message that will last for decades to come, perhaps even extend generation to generation.”
Homeschool Nature Study For Your Family
This book is a perfect complement to reading in the Handbook of Nature Study. I think Anna Botsford Comstock would have felt the need to write just this sort of book if she lived in our modern age. The principles are the same, the message embraced in everything Anna Botsford Comstock created: Get children outdoors looking at the world around them.
I highly recommend that you look for this book at your local public library and then read it.
I invite you to read and have your thinking transformed, creating in you the need to spend time outside with your children.
Here are some simple ways to study nature in your homeschool. Start in your own yard then let your discoveries grow out like ripples in a pond.
“Nature study is, despite all discussions and perversions, a study of nature; it consists of simple, truthful observations that may, like beads on a string, finally be threaded upon the understanding and thus held together as a logical and harmonious whole.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 1
Simple Ways to Study Nature in Your Homeschool
In the Handbook of Nature Study, the emphasis is learning about your own backyard. At first you may feel as if there is nothing interesting in your own backyard, but I have learned that the more you focus, the more you see.
Nature Study in Ripples – Start in Your Own Yard
Nature study is about training the eye to perceive what you have at hand. Learning to see and then learning to compare are two valuable skills you can develop with nature study. These skills will pop up in other areas of your life. Charlotte Mason wrote that learning to see the beauty in nature was the beginning of becoming more skilled as an artist.
“Nature study cultivates the child’s imagination, since there are so many wonderful and true stories that he may read with his own eyes, which affect his imagination as much as does fairy lore; at the same time nature study cultivates in him a perception and a regard for what is true, and the power to express it.”
The backyard can hold your attention for a long time if you are diligent about looking for a variety of things to observe. Most of us have:
plants
birds
trees
rocks
insects
invertebrates
and mammals (that will visit us at least at certain times of the year)
Challenge your family to pick something each week to learn more about. This is a long-term project that you will find such satisfaction in doing together as a family. Each family member can develop their special area of interest. I love flowers and birds. My husband is a tree person. The boys enjoy insects, birds, and the garden. Amanda loves flowers and growing them in her garden. We all enjoy discovering a new critter in the backyard.
Nature Study in Your Neighborhood
Once you have awakened the desire for nature study you can widen out your range and spend time in your neighborhood as part of your nature study time. The circle widens a little and you begin to see your neighborhood street or park as another source of great nature study subjects. Your neighbor may have an interesting tree or you may have access to a pond to look for another whole range of plants and animals. The comparing and contrasting continue as you relate your backyard habitat to this new habitat.
“A twenty minute trip with a picnic lunch can make a day in the country accessible to almost anyone, but why do it just one day? Why not do it lots of days? Or even every nice day?”
I think we could easily spend a lifetime learning about all the interesting things in this slightly wider circle of exploration. Charlotte Mason suggests finding places within a twenty minute distance from your home to visit for frequent picnics and outings. The benefits of finding a few places to go regularly for family walks are immeasurable. It takes dedication to pack everyone up in the car and drive a few minutes but once you are on your way, you don’t regret the decision. Really, there is no real need for a car if you can walk to an interesting area in twenty minutes or so. Be curious about your local area and try to seek out a few interesting spots to walk and then rotate visiting them during each season.
The next step is to increase your circle even more….to ripple out even farther than your neighborhood. Perhaps you have a nature center, a state park, or a national park that is within a day trip’s distance. Occasionally it is refreshing to travel a bit to build excitement for a different habitat than you normally have access to for nature study. In our area we have within a few hours travel the Pacific Ocean, temperate rainforests, a conifer forest, oak woodlands, a river delta and wetlands, a bay, an estuary, farmland, sub-alpine trails, a hot springs, and so on. Get out a map and draw a circle around your home town that extends a hundred miles in radius. Look within that radius for places you can visit on a long day’s trip. You might be surprised what you come up with in your own area.
“Adults should realize that the most valuable thing children can learn is what they discover themselves about the world they live in. Once they experience first-hand the wonder of nature, they will want to make nature observation a life-long habit.”
Start as close as you can and then work your way farther and farther from your home. Spend as much time as you want in each area perhaps going back several times to a specific place to really get to know it. Experience it during every season.
As your children grow older, you can increase your ripples to include longer road trips or special trips to fascinating habitats.
“Nature does not start out with the classification given in books, but in the end it builds up in the child’s mind a classification which is based on fundamental knowledge; it is a classification like that evolved by the first naturalists, because it is built on careful personal observations of both form and life.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 6
More Simple Ideas for Your Nature Time in Ripples
The idea is a simple one. Think of ripples in a pond. The experiences you have close to home will help you develop skills and knowledge to later compare and contrast with other habitats. Learning about seeds and plants in your backyard will give your child a frame of reference when he goes to learn about seeds in wildflowers, or sequoias, or a cactus. Learning the skill of using binoculars to observe a bird on a tree branch in your yard will train him to use that skill when you are out on a nature hike in a marshland. Learning to sit quietly to see what you can hear in your own backyard will be time well spent for those times that you would like to observe something interesting on a nature outing, perhaps a deer or a squirrel.
So much of our modern life is spent indoors. Our families need the refreshing spirit that comes from being outdoors and under the sky. We can start nature study in a small way in our own yards, but once the ripple is started, you never know where it might take you.
I am often asked if homeschool nature study can substitute for a more formal science program for homeschooling families.
I can’t make a blanket answer in response to everyone but I can perhaps share some quotes, links, and my own reflections on this topic.
Homeschool Nature Study or Science?
“Mrs. Comstock believed that the student found in such a study a fresh, spontaneous interest which was lacking in formal textbook science, and the phenomenal success of her work seems to prove that she was right. Moreover, nature-study as Mrs. Comstock conceived it was an aesthetic experience as well as a discipline. It was an opening of the eyes to the individuality, the ingenuity, the personality of each of the unnoticed lifeforms about us. It meant a broadening of intellectual outlook, an expansion of sympathy, a fuller life.” Handbook of Nature Study Publisher’s Foreword 1939
I believe in the younger grades that our responsibility as parents is to open the eyes of our children to the world around them, exposing them to real things and real places. I have long said here on this blog that it makes no sense to me to teach our children about the rainforest if they haven’t even learned about the trees and animals in their local habitat. The younger years are the time to get outside and take walks and look at real things up close and form memories and impressions. There is a time for books and textbooks (in limited amounts) but that can come later.
In the younger years, we should be more concerned with creating that direct contact with nature and not the memorizing of facts about things we haven’t encountered in real life. Nature study should include those objects most often seen and encountered during your outdoor time. The flowers, trees, birds, insects, and rocks that are found in your own yard or neighborhood are the perfect start to your nature study experiences. The best way to teach nature study is not by setting out a rigid course of study but to be aware of topics that are all around you and one by one to make observations and to learn as a family.
Homeschool Nature Study in the Younger Years
For instance, you could read about a monarch in a book, noting the illustrations and the scientific facts about this beautiful butterfly. This may soon be forgotten. But, if you are out in your garden or on a nature walk and come across a monarch butterfly that maybe has a tattered wing, your child might just want to know about where it came from and why it has a few ragged edges on its wings. They care about the real butterfly. Their personal experience with this insect will now give the reading about it in a book more meaning. This butterfly now has a story and your child might be more inclined to tell that story in their own words either orally or on paper. The correlation between what they saw in the garden and what they have learned about the monarch may even spur them to act in behalf of that monarch by planting a butterfly garden with milkweed or participate in a citizen science project where they tag monarchs.
“…when he (the teacher) is concerned chiefly with the effects of the lesson upon the development of the child he is probably teaching Nature Study.”
This is so different than teaching science that emphasizes the taking in of a preset number of facts and topics each year. Textbooks were created to conveniently teach the same set of information to a large number of students. This is usually followed by some sort of quiz or test that supposedly measures the learning of these facts and topics. In my homeschooling experience, textbooks actually got in the way of any actual learning. The meaningful learning in science (and nature study) occurred when we formed our own relationships with the material and sought out experiences and books that would feed our interest. There was no need for a test and most of the important things we learned were skills in observation and in building an appreciation for the creation in our world.
“Nature Study is the creating and the increasing of a loving acquaintance with nature.” Bigelow
“To put the pupil in a sympathetic attitude toward nature for the purpose of increasing the joy of living.” L.H. Bailey
“The educational value of Nature Study lies in its power to add to our capacity of appreciation-our love and enjoyment of all open air objects.” John Burroughs
It would be ideal if all nature study could be spontaneous but that hardly seems practical in our busy homeschooling lives. For ease of scheduling, there must be some provision for getting outside each week (or in a perfect world it would be every day). Aim for three things in your nature study: to really see what you are looking at with direct and accurate observation, understand why the thing is so and what it means, and then to pique an interest in knowing more about the object.
The Educational Value of Nature Study
“Nature Study- It is the intellectual, physical, and moral development by and through purposeful action and reaction upon environment, guided so far as need by, by the teacher.” John Dearness, 1905
Here is an example from this same Google Book:
“Children hunting a lost ball in a meadow adjoining the play-yard discover a ground bird’s nest with four blotched eggs. Their interest is aroused. They describe the nest to the teacher and inquire to what kind of bird it belongs. Unfortunate for them if he is a scientist enough and unpedagogical enough to say at once: It is a bob-o-link’s nest. Better were he a good teacher and no ornithologist, for then he would use their interest to lead to some educational activity which would be far more useful to them that the mere information they seek. But best of all if the teacher knows well both children and birds. In that case he can guide them to discover the answer to their question in an educative way, and in doing so excite them to ask and answer by research many other related questions. He engages their interest at the favorable moment to train them to observe, think, investigate and enjoy. This is Nature Study.”
Rather, the Handbook of Nature Study is a reference guide for the parent to use in familiarizing themselves with particular nature study topics. It gives a short narrative for each item and then a “lesson” of sorts that is actually just a great list of ideas for direct observation when you happen upon the object in real life. I have found that the more I read it ahead of time (as in preparing for a particular Outdoor Hour Challenge), the more prepared I am when we finally see a subject during our outdoor time, either in our yard, neighborhood, or on a hike. I can be like the good teacher in the quote above that leads the child to make their own inquiries and connections to discover more about something they found of interest on their nature walk.
What About Nature Study as Environmental Science?
“…environmental science is the field of science that studies the interactions of the physical, chemical, and biological components of the environment and also the relationships and effects of these components with the organisms in the environment.
You can definitely use your homeschool nature study as part of your homeschooling high school plans, incorporating aspects of environmental science. Here are some examples of how we did this in our own homeschool:
I feel as if I just scratched the surface of this topic in this blog entry. I will leave you with one last important thought from a Nature Study Review pamphlet I found on Google Books (written in the early part of the 20th century):
“So long as the sun shines and the fields are green, we shall need to go to nature for our inspiration and our respite; and our need is the greater with every increasing complexity of our lives.”
