How to Teach Everything Through Nature: Connecticut's Beardsley Zoo

Connecticut is a pretty small state, so nothing in-state is too far for us to get there and back and still have a full day of fun. But we all know that sometimes a trip longer than 20 minutes seems like an eternity to a small child (and his parents!), so it's good to have something to do in the car. We had a sing-along of R&B favorites (well, my husband IS a professional musician!). But if sing-alongs aren't your style, here is a site with a ton of car games that you can play while you are on the road.

Mom's Mini Van has even more ideas, complete with downloadable game boards (if you want to play license plate bingo, for example).

When I was a classroom teacher, I used to observe other teachers with their classes when we went to the Roger Williams Park and Zoo. I used to wonder about the ones that were walking around the zoo with clipboards, filling in graphic organizers as they went. I love a good graphic organizer, but kids learn so much more than what's on any paper when they go on an outing. So, as much as you can, I would resist the temptation to turn the outing into "outdoor school".

Here was our agenda for the day:

1. Arrive at zoo
2. See everything.
3. Take lots of pictures (all of us).
4. Eat lunch.
5. Go to the gift shop.
6. Go home.

Here are the main sections of the zoo:

- a very nice Wolf Observation Learning Facility. There is a docent available to give background on the animals (Timber Wolf, Red Wolf currently; Maned Wolf in another part of the zoo), as well as a "hands-on" exhibit of skull models, fur and paw prints. There are several indoor and outdoor observation areas.
-a Rainforest Building, with a number of animals you might typically see at the zoo; but this building has a flock of scarlet ibis which are just gorgeous (see Photo Gallery).
-a very active and lively Prairie Dog colony -- you see these at lots of zoos, but this is a nice one, I think.
-a New England Farmyard exhibit -- the pond in the center is an attraction, and sported a very raucous peacock when we were there.
-a Walk-through Wetlands Aviary, with a variety of native ducks meandering among the patrons.
-an assortment of beautiful Guinea fowl and peacocks that strolled the grounds freely

Be prepared to spend about three hours at the zoo -- we walked through at a leisurely pace, and saw everything. It might take you longer if your kids are really little. If your kids are older than seven or so, this zoo is probably a little small, unless you are there to study a specific animal.

TEACHING TIP #1. Cameras!:

For our trip today, we all brought cameras. Our son focused on photos of animals (of course), while my husband and I focused on pictures of LEARNING (and fun!) taking place. These digital photos were immediately uploaded onto my computer for a variety of follow-up science and literacy lessons (see below). Being together, looking at the animals, reading and talking about them and observing them was the focus of our zoo experience.

TEACHING TIP #2. Maps!:

The zoo hands you a map when you pay your admission. On the reverse of the map is a scavenger hunt which corresponds to footprints of various animals, painted on the walkways throughout the zoo. The scavenger hunt is great fun for little kids, and educational. We had our son man the map, letting him plan the trip and navigate the family to the gift shop, the bathrooms, lunch and various exhibits. He said to me, "Reading a map is kind of like school!"

TEACHING TIP #3. Meaningful Gifts!:

I don't know how you feel about gift shops. I always leave them until last, because it disappoints me when kids go for kitschy things that have nothing to do with the place you're visiting. But I like to get something to commemorate our visit. So I exercise the maternal power of "no" frequently. We end up coming to an agreement, and everyone is happy. We came home with a T-shirt, a little pair of binoculars (to use with his current bird studies), a little flashlight projector with images of all the animals at the zoo, and a bag of polished magnetite pebbles that appealed greatly to my husband, too.

If you have a raft of kids, and aren't practicing working with money with them, here's an idea I got from another teacher who was there when we visited. She had "pre-ordered" the specific, educational items that she wanted for her class (pencils with the zoo logo, T-shirts, little binoculars, journals, etc.), prior to her visit. Then she just picked them up on the way out of the zoo. I thought this was a clever way to memorialize the trip but avoid the trap of the kid who just has to have to glow-in-the-dark unicorn perched on a lollipop, which has nothing to do with the visit. I'm thinking this would be good for homeschoolers who visit with a large number of children, or homeschool cooperatives that attend field trips together.

The way home is a nice time to reflect on the day. Here is an organizer that you can use for any activity where you want kids to generate a lot of ideas about something, It is called an ABC Organizer. [NOTE: I'm giving an example here of using this with children on a field trip, but this is a powerful tool for adults too. I use it in presentations to teachers, to help them build background knowledge about a topic, before I begin presenting on it. It is easier to learn if you call to mind what you already know about a topic, first.]

On our trip, we didn't get to the ABC Organizer until later in the evening, because the student fell asleep in the car on the way home -- I told you it was a good day!

There are plenty of science connections from a trip to the zoo. But I wanted to go beyond the obvious ones to one that was richer and deeper, and that would involve pulling together all that your child saw, read and heard on the zoo field trip: a study of biomes. There are six major biomes of the world: desert, grassland, rainforest, taiga, temperate and tundra. Biomes are defined by their climate (temperature and moisture). The particular biomes that would make sense for your child to study depend on the zoo that you visited. At the Beardsley Zoo, there are three biomes that could be studied more in depth after your zoo trip: grassland (the prairie dog community); temperate (the woodland wetlands); and rainforest (the tropical rainforests of the Amazon).

We want kids to think deeply about what they learn. The sad part about much science education is that it is fact-based, rather than concept- and relationship-based. Facts change, but basic scientific principles don't. Kids (and teachers) love animal reports, but they rarely lead to deeper thinking about the world, unless we really construct them carefully. There are two different comprehension tools that I would use in a biome study: a comparison matrix and a Venn diagram with categories. Both of these tools require kids to think deeply about characteristics of biomes, similarities and differences among and between biomes, and the basic features of all biomes, much deeper thinking than the typical animal report that comes out of many zoo trips.

For the youngest children, I would guide them through a comparison of the biome they are studying and the place where they live, using a Venn diagram with categories. A Venn diagram with categories goes beyond the traditional Venn diagram, which can be superficial, and includes categories that are critical to the topic being studied. For example, it doesn't help a child's comprehension of reptiles and amphibians to say that both have eyes, both have legs, etc... But asking students to compare critical aspects of their biology (e.g., skin, life cycles, etc.) leads to better understanding of the similarities and differences between the two groups. Use the photographs you took at the zoo to spark their recollections, and literature on the subject (see below). For example, children might say that they see ducks both in the temperate wetlands, and also at the park where they live. I would have them put "ducks" in the center of the Venn, then qualify that further by saying, "ducks everywhere" for the temperate biome, and "ducks in parks" for the neighborhood where they live.

As kids get a little older, help them to compare two biomes that they learned about at the zoo (NOTE: You will have to remind them that the temperature at the zoo was a reflection of the place they live, NOT the biome the exhibit was representing -- use your texts to support this). Here is another Venn diagram with categories for this activity.

As children are able to sustain longer studies (upper elementary and beyond), a comparison matrix becomes a useful tool for comparing multiple things with regard to certain features. Key characteristics are listed on the top row of the matrix, and the biomes are listed on the left hand side. Then, after each new biome study, students return to the matrix and place checkmarks under the features which describe that new biome. Here is an example of a multiple biome
comparison matrix.

Here's a twist for really deep thinking: have the students define the characteristics of each biome. When we study biomes in school, the teacher typically teaches the characteristics of each biome, then the students learn about specific examples of each biome afterward. A really neat way to draw students to CONCLUDE what the key characteristics of a biome are, is the use of a comparison matrix. It is powerful for children to look for patterns, trends, similarities and differences, then draw conclusions. Using this single-biome comparison matrix, the child reads about or studies different examples of that biome, listing them along the left column. Then, for each example, they will note its characteristics. At the end, the child will be able to say what is ALWAYS true about that biome, what is SOMETIMES true about the biome, and what is NEVER true about the biome. (NOTE: to clearly see this, have your child study rainforests, to see that there are three distinct types, and they are not always hot).

See "What's It Like Where You Live?" by the Missouri Botanical Garden, for many more activities around biomes.

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We will be doing two science follow-ups to our zoo trip: a study of the temperate biome (Charlotte Mason would recommend that you start where your child lives, rather than learn about exotic places), and a further study of prairie dog communities, to accompany our animal taxonomy work (here is the link for the e-text to our textbook, The Burgess Animal Book for Children, a great "living book" about animal classification, and a link to Ambleside Online's taxonomic key to the animal kingdom as described in the text).

Teachers today lament the writing of their students, whether they be second-graders or seniors in high school. They complain that students' writing lacks rich vocabulary or depth of thought, that their connections between themselves and the text are shallow or irrelevant and their desire to expand on their ideas, limited. I often wonder if it's because we don't give them enough really interesting things to read and then write about. We approach reading and writing as if they're a checklist of isolated skills to complete, rather than tools for communicating with the world. The end result is we train students how to produce a formulaic type of written work, which suits our high-stakes testing, but we don't foster a love of the written and spoken word, which is real-life.

To me, starting with good stuff to learn that is interesting to the child naturally leads to a higher quality of writing. Here we go back to living books, yet again.

Charlotte Mason's philosophy on response to living books focused on narration, which teachers today would call "retell," the simple summary of a piece of written text orally (first), then in writing. According to her homeschool curriculum philosophy, formal writing instruction shouldn't begin until after age seven, and the focus, up until that point, should be placed more on a well-articulated oral narration. I DO agree with her emphasis on oral language extending well beyond preschool. But I also believe that even little kids can respond to literature and experiences in writing, if we include art response to literature and illustrations as writing.

To that end, I have used notebooking as the writing format for all of our animal and nature studies. There is a plethora of notebooking pages available for download (free or fee), or you can just use lined and unlined paper and a 3-ring binder. What I have had success with is presenting a variety of notebooking pages to my son after a study, reading or lesson, then asking him which would be the best one to use, or which one he'd like to use to organize his ideas. Just the choice and the different formats often spark his ideas.

Notebooking Treasury has a ton of beautifully designed notebooking pages for nature study, animal studies and any other topic you'd like to write about. There are free pages, packages to download for a fee, and annual memberships that make the entire collection available. I also add any graphic organizers we make or that I download, and topic-specific diagrams that I download from Enchanted Learning and other sites.

For example, in the current on-going study on animal classifications with my seven-year-old, we have 4 T-charts, two webs, 1 organized list, a Venn diagram, an animal information journal page with illustration and lines (see photograph), 2 maps and an ABC organizer, in addition to other notes and free writings in a science notebook, which, in turn, becomes the source for further additions to his nature study notebook. In his bird study, he focused more on free observation in our back yard, so his journal pages include an organized list of birds, blackline coloring sheets of the birds that he's studied, a diagram (parts of a bird), and many blank journal pages which have lines and a space for an illustration. All of these are authentic ways of writing, and are appropriate for a nature study unit.

Some of you have asked me if I would post the answers for the Beardsley Zoo Animal Tracks Scavenger Hunt. That would be like letting you peek at your birthday present before I wrapped it! But I DO believe in reading up on things before you visit a place, so I put together this little "primer" on the animals featured in the Scavenger Hunt. Follow the links for some fun facts and photos of these animals, and then click on over to Follow Those Tracks! my new Animal Tracks Quiz, to see how much you know about animal's and their tracks.

Bison (Bison bison)
Lynx (Felis lynx)
Siberian Tiger (Panthera tigris)
Domestic Pig (Sus scrofa)
Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes)
Black-tailed Prairie Dog (Cynomys ludovicianus)
Timber Wolf (Canis lupis)
Pronghorn (Antilocapra americana)
Domestic Duck (Anas boschas)
Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo)
Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis)
River Otter (Lontra canadensis)
Black Bear (Ursus americanus)
White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virgianus)

We follow Ambleside Online's homeschool curriculum, which is modeled after the homeschooling philosophy of Charlotte Mason. We especially like the texts, scope and sequence of the social studies part of the curriculum. What has been challenging for me has been connecting the history lessons to anything that we are doing in science. For example, we have been studying the Middle Ages this term, and have connected the events in Europe with the happenings here "across the pond," such as the Viking settlement of North America, the culture of the Algonquins, and the history of the indigenous people of North America, in general. But it was sometimes challenging to connect this study with our nature studies.

The Beardsley Zoo has an exhibit which immediately struck me as a way to connect science with social studies through the natural history of North America: the American bison. Besides boasting two cow-cousins the size of my husband's Toyota Tundra, the exhibit has a display which includes maps showing the shrinking distribution of the bison across North America over the centuries prior to the European arrival, to the present day.

We always include timelines and maps with any history studies -- as we continue to study European events during the Middle Ages, we will definitely include a study of the American bison for our natural history studies, including a population map and a timeline of the "Age of the Bison", as well a study of the many ways that the Native Americans utilized the bison they hunted. [This also ties in well to our Bible Studies, where we have been talking about stewardship of the planet].

The Notebooking Treasury has timeline notebooking pages. You can download a free set of pages for a Book of Centuries from Simply Charlotte Mason, also. I downloaded the free version from SCM, but I also include some of the fancier pages from the Treasury, too. Can't help it -- just love these notebooking pages! If you want to see what Charlotte Mason envisioned for the Book of Centuries back in the early 20th century, here is a link to an article from her magazine, Parent's Review, with ideas on how to implement a Book of Centuries with your child.

As I said previously, there was quite a population of peacocks roaming freely at the Beardsley Zoo. One particularly bold guy kept maneuvering to offer his best display to my husband (I guess he saw my husband, who is 6'3", as the biggest threat among all the moms with babies in strollers). We got a great view of the intricacy of the design of his tail feathers, and I was struck by the details and patterns. So I did some research on fractals when I got home.

A fractal is a geometric shape that can be divided into smaller pieces, each of which looks like a tiny replica of the original shape. The more you divide, the more you find teeny versions of the big shape. [Notice that the eyespot on a tail feather looks like a tiny image of the whole peacock with his tail feather extended].

Cynthia Lanius, from Rice State University, has put together a terrific unit on fractals, including a study of fractals in nature, for elementary and middle schools students, called Why Study Fractals?

For some amazing photos of fractals in nature, check out Fractals in Nature, by Bane Planet. Amazing.

Once you study the eyespots on a peacocks tail plumage, and the other photos in the above link, you will see that there are lots of patterns in nature. These patterns can be calculated out mathematically, by using special values called Fibonacci numbers. Also, if you begin to study the proportions of beautiful objects in nature, you will find that a certain proportion pops up over and over again -- the "Golden Proportion." Math Wizardry for Kids has a series of fun lessons and activities that work with some of these special numbers that you get when you start measuring proportions in natural fractals that you find in the natural world. You'll never look at patterns and proportions the same if you study them this way.

Want more information? Check out my article on Fractals in Nature.

A trip to the zoo is a logical fit for any studies of Creation or the story of Noah and the ark. At home, we have emphasized in both stories the idea of plants bearing seed, "each according to its own kind," and the animals going into the ark in pairs, with Noah selecting pairs of each "kind" of animal. We couple these Scripture readings in Genesis with our studies of animal classification in the Burgess Book of Animals. So it all fits.

We find poems on theme from the featured poet according to the AO curriculum. Currently, we are studying Eugene Fields. We will select poems about animals and nature for our penmanship practice. You could also practice handwriting with the names of animals that you saw on your trip, then add these penmanship pieces to your nature study notebook.

For some additional activities on the Creation and Noah's Ark stories, or general information and resources on Bible studies curriculum, check out the links (above) to Calvary Church's Children's Ministry Web site.

A quick search of the Internet reveals that peacocks have inspired many people over the ages, and continue to lend themselves to art in response to literature, nature study and other lessons.

Here are some lessons to explore, for ways to connect a study of peacocks to some artistic response work:

Brilliant Peacock Plumage (Crayola)

This lesson plan could follow a study of bird feathers (See "A Little Fun With Our Feathered Friends" for a feather study), or on iridescence, or a study of sexual dimorphism and the use of coloration to attract mates. While the activity involves using hands and fingers to paint, it is suitable for all ages of elementary school (the directions give ideas on how to add specific details to the painting).

Peacock Trivia #1: Did you know that the peacock is the national bird of India?

Peacock Art Project for First Grade (Deep Space Sparkle)

I am always amazed at the gorgeous artwork truly gifted art teachers are able to get out of even the littlest artists. This art lesson is one of those amazing activities that not only exposes kids to multiple media, but also connects back to the science. In this lesson, children use tempera paint and metallic foil pr metallic tempera paint to replicate the iridescence of the peacock's tail feathers. What a beautiful way to complement a study of these majestic birds!

Peacock Trivia #2: Did you know that the broad flat part of a peacock tail feather is called the "lamina?"

How to Draw a Peacock, Step By Step (my-how-to-draw.com and Drawing

For those who want a more formulaic approach to representing peacocks, these two sites include links to quite a few pages showing step-by-step instructions on how to draw a peacock.

Peacock Trivia #3: Did you know that the long tail of a peacock is called a "train?"

How to Draw Cartoon Peacocks (How to Draw)

This page explains how to draw cartoon-style peacocks, as the title states.

Peacock Trivia #4: Did you know that the peacock is closely related to the pheasant?

Peacock Chain Earrings (Free DIY Lessons)

For the jewelers in the audience, here is a web page explaining a technique for creating beautiful earrings that resemble a peacock's tail.

Peacock Trivia #5: Did you know that "peacock" really refers only to the male, and that the female is called a "peahen?"

All content (c) 2011, Kim M. Bennett.


How to Teach Everything Through Nature: Connecticut's Beardsley Zoo by Kim M. Bennett is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
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