Category: Education
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Goldendale Observatory
This is the fourth post from our Spring Break Trip. The first was about hikes from the Catherine Creek Trailhead. The second post was about the Vista House and Gorge waterfalls. The third was about camping and exploring at Columbia Hills State Park. Future posts will include: The Columbia River Gorge Discovery Center and History Museum in…
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Othello Sandhill Crane Festival and Columbia NWR
The kids and I did our first big road trip adventure of the season on the last weekend in March. We heard about a bird festival over in Central Washington, we had some free time, and we decided to go. The kids had been requesting a trip to the desert, too, and no snowshoeing, please,…
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Lewis Creek Park, Bellevue
We had the chance last Friday to check out a new park (for us) over in Bellevue. Lewis Creek Park has about 3 miles of trails on its 55 acres. It includes wetlands, meadows, and forests. Some of the trails are paved, and some are softer surfaces. The Visitor Center has some interesting activities and…
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2014 Northwest Flower and Garden Show
The first weekend in February is usually the Northwest Flower and Garden Show. This extravaganza takes place right when we are getting tired of our gloomy, grey, damp winter. It helps us turn the corner to spring, or at least to have hope that spring is not far away. When I first started going to…
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Night Adventures
Last weekend I had the chance to go to an Owl Prowl at Seward park down in Seattle. The class started off with owl pellet dissection – usually I have the kids with me at events like this, but this time I was by myself and was able to do the dissection myself. I had…
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Raptor Research Field Trip
Last winter when we volunteered with the Puget Sound Bird Observatory, we asked if there was anyone who did raptor banding, because Annika was so interested in birds of prey. We got connected with a local researcher, but weren’t able to go out with him last winter. We tried again this winter, and yesterday Ben…
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This One’s For the Birds
I think I’ve written before about Bird Sleuth, a website dedicated to helping teachers of the K-12 crowd teach about birds and related subjects. They recently updated their website, http://www.birdsleuth.org. Here you can learn about using bird watching to educate youngsters. Check out the kits you can purchase for leading groups of children and homeschoolers…
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Thinking About Fall and Winter
Well, we had a hike planned today. I even had the kids pick where to go, and they were looking forward to it. But when we woke up this morning, my most sensitive and emotional child burst into tears at the thought of hiking. I couldn’t get him to budge on the idea, even with…
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Buggin’ Out at Brightwater
Last Saturday we had the chance to go to a nature event at the Brightwater wastewater treatment plant. We looked in ponds for bugs: We looked at pond life under microscopes: We did some art projects: We enjoyed the art around the campus: We learned a bit more about the water cycle and the uses…
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Citizen Science Projects for Kids – Part 3
[This is the third in a series of posts describing citizen science projects that kids can be involved in. Read the first post here, about bird projects, and the second post here, about plants and other animals.] As I was researching projects to include in this series of articles, I came across an interesting website…