Do-it-yourself EXPLORING
Children get active in nature with environmental kits
A nature exploration kit is helping children to discover the outside world through wildlife identification, environmental experiments and watershed activities.
When the COVID-19 pandemic happened, organizations had to make a lot of changes to their usual programming including the Schuylkill River Greenways National Heritage Area. Schuylkill River Greenways has an education department which provides lessons to youth and community members about watersheds, an area of land which drains into a body of water after there’s precipitation.
The Schuylkill River Watershed encompasses several counties in the area including Philadelphia, Montgomery, Berks, Chester and Schuylkill Counties. Sarah Crothers, Schuylkill River Greenways education director, said the “Schuylkill Explorers Kit” was created to fill the need that was created when the organization was no longer able to provide in-person group lessons because of the coronavirus.
The kits include a variety of experiments, activities and materials focused on environmental education. Crothers said about 300 kits have been distributed this summer to community youth groups and families so they could have a reason to get outside.
“There are materials in the kit that encourage exploration such as binoculars, magnifying glasses and nature journaling,” she said.
Crothers with the help of a summer fellow made hundreds of exploration kits this summer to give to families. Veronica Wynn, an Alliance for Watershed Education of the Delaware River fellow, has spent the summer and now some of the fall designing the kits, putting them together and distributing them to the community.
“I really enjoyed creating this,” Wynn said. “I envisioned families and kids forming a bond with nature through these kits.”
Wynn said the kits were designed to be a “portable and do-it-yourself” version of Schuylkill River Greenways’ traditional watershed educational programming. She also wanted to provide a kit that as many children as possible would be able to use. The kit was designed so both children in rural and urban environments could enjoy it. Wynn grew up in a rural community and was a girl scout but said she realizes that is not the experience of every child.
Wynn wanted children in urban environments, as well as rural areas, to be able to “give a name to the face” when they see wildlife in nature. She created a dichotomous key to include in the kit. The key is a tool used to identify specific animals seen in nature through a series of questions. The Schuylkill Explorers Kit includes such a key with a list of questions along with identification cards including photos of several animals such as birds and fish. Wynn compared the wildlife key to the game of “Pokémon Go” but said it’s instead for realistic animals.
Wynn organized several pop-up giveaway events along the Schuylkill River Trail so families could stop to retrieve a kit for free. There will be a kit giveaway at Pottstown Riverfront Park on Friday, Sept. 18, from 2 to 4 p.m. The kits are limited to one per household and will be available while supplies last.
Crothers said families will soon be able to download or view the printed documents included in the kit through the Schuylkill River Greenways website schuylkillriver.org. The documents include all the instructions for the activities and experiments. Families would then only need to get the materials to go along with some of the activities such as baking soda, vinegar and coffee.