Shelburne parents get their Hands On Nature

by Janet Franz

Parents of Shelburne Community School (SCS) students gathered in the town office meeting room on a recent Thursday morning to examine holes on leaves and search for webs and larvae hiding inside. They investigated chew patterns and sorted the foliage into several piles.

The attendees, student’s moms and dads, were in training for the Nature Program, a community-based project that brings parent volunteers into classrooms to help students explore nature and discover connections in the natural world. The curriculum and training are provided by the Four Winds Nature Institute, a nonprofit organization based in Chittenden, Vt.

Each year in Shelburne, about 50 parents of pre-K through third grade students participate in the monthly training sessions and then present the material in their children’s classrooms at SCS. The parents work in teams of two or more to educate, inspire, and bring the students outside to look, discover, and learn. This year’s lessons focus on ecosystems, and September’s topic is critters that eat leaves in autumn.

By comparing the scalloped edges and holes in leaves, students discover the ways bugs feed on plants.  Through a puppet show, they meet an insect that pierces leaves and sips out the plant juices, leaving behind discolored patches where it fed. They analyze evidence of creatures that created scattered holes, chewed on leaf edges, tunneled through a leaf, or ate the soft tissue between a leaf’s veins. They learn that some insects and spiders roll, fold, or cover leaves in silk to create shelters for eggs or safe dining spots.

Outside in the schoolyard, the children collect leaves to search for evidence of leaf eating. They categorize the leaves by their blemishes and look at them through magnifying glasses to read the stories eaten in the leaves. Using string and pictures of flora and fauna, the students’ model how plants and animals in an ecosystem are connected in a complex food web. Then they record their discoveries in nature journals, drawing and writing about the leaves, insects, and spiders they discovered.

Every month throughout the school year, the Nature Program will lead the students in examining the characteristics of organisms and considering the interconnections among living and nonliving systems in the Earth’s environments. On Oct. 2, parents will explore how to educate the children about organisms that live in the soil and decompose plants. For more information about The Nature Program, visit fwni.org.