Future Naturalists (Shallow Thoughts)

Future Naturalists

I took a respite from wrestling with broken motherboards on Thursday for a short mid-day walk at Shoreline, looking for birds.

What I found instead was schoolchildren, everywhere!

Maybe 20 different groups, each consisting of about 10 kids (perhaps 5th grade or so?) and 2-3 adults. The students all carried binoculars and bird books; some of the adults carried scopes.

With so many people in the park, the birds weren't as plentiful as usual, but I didn't mind: it was fun to see how interested the kids were and how much fun they seemed to be having. One group spotted a hummer six feet off the trail in a bush; binoculars came up, pages flipped, faces concentrated, and there was a chorus of "Anna's hummingbird!" and "Ooh, look, he's so beautiful!"

Really fun. Watching kids get excited about learning is more fun than watching birds!

(Reminds me of Ed Greenberg's comment at an SJAA star party: "The only thing cooler than Saturn is a kid looking at Saturn.")

Tags: nature, birds
[ 10:27 Mar 27, 2005    More nature/birds | permalink to this entry | ]