Friday, March 17, 2023

Jericho Families in Nature (JFiN) Introduction

Next Walk is Saturday, May 20

Mobbs Hill Trails.

The walk starts at 2 PM.

Meet at the parking lot near the town Garage,

off of Browns Trace Road.

See photos of our last walk at JFiN Mills Riverside Park Observe and Discover Nature Walk

Jericho Wild - Life

Observing Nature

You are hereby granted permission.

Explore nature. In your backyard, at a local park, in the woods, fields, and streams. Observe the creatures that breathe, sleep, eat, and perhaps even play as we do though likely not the same way we do.

Discover using only your own senses, take in the wonder of the unknown through your own lens those species that live amongst us, that share and depend upon the natural habitat just as we do.

Ask yourself and others on your walk, without expecting a sure answer, why does that plant have concurrent rings on its stems? Why does that bumblebee visit some colors of flowers but not others? Where does that beetle sleep at night? Examine and theorize (guess) and discuss together; use the principles of Concept, Evidence, and Reasoning.

Anything you find of interest is worth talking about.

Go out to find not answers but questions.

Become small to see small, and smaller, and very small life forms, where secrets are exposed to those who look closely and patiently. How small can you go? If you were that small (insect or creature or plant) for a day, what would you eat? Where would you sleep? How would you move about? How would you warm up on a cold morning? How fast could you move? If you were an ant how long would it take you to walk across your backyard? How high would you dare to climb?

Bring only your verbs with you into nature’s realm: Observe, discover, explore, see, smell, touch, hear, mimic, play, pretend, question, suppose or suggest answers. Do insects ever accidentally bump into each other? What might they say to each other when they do bump?

Give yourself permission to not know the answers and to be curious. Let the knowledge come from what you find interesting, what you are curious about. Let your questions help you find the patterns and processes that shape the landscape and the creatures that live there.

Tell a story. Sketch an "event map” or “treasure map” of your walk including the trail and what you observe along the way. Draw or paint, or write about your experience, observations, feelings while on the walk, likes, favorites, and funny episodes along the way. What was new to you? Will you observe life in your own backyard? What might you see there?

Join us on a JFiN (Jericho Families in Nature), a facilitated walk for families and communal connection with nature. Expect nature to flood your senses with exquisite detail and unimaginable mysteries. The key to this fabulous portal is foremost to stop, look, and listen with no agenda, and to enter into alien worlds waiting to be discovered by you.

JFiN walks begin in April 2023.

Contact Bernie Paquette or Abbey Heimlich (Youth Librarian at DRML) or Laura Kerson, or Elizabeth Hollenbach, for more information or to volunteer to help host JFiN walks.

JFiN - helping individuals cultivate a love of nature.

If you are interested in adding your name to our mailing list announcing walk dates, email Bernie or any of the other three committee members listed above.

Our (JFiN) shared commitment:

Connect children and their families to nature through time spent walking along Jericho’s natural areas, exploring, observing, discovering, and playing, outdoors.

& Create and support direct, hands-on opportunities for people of all ages to reconnect to the natural world; and in doing so foster a community dedicated to building an understanding of natural ecosystems and the inherent biodiversity within those systems.

Our by-line: “The highest high is the high of discovery” E.O. Wilson

The excitement at finding each new species fuels the excitement and passion.

Our Goals:

1.) Nurture curiosity, pro-environmental behaviors, and joyful learning in nature through spontaneous experiences.

2.) Facilitate an enjoyable, outdoor natural area experience.

3.) Encourage routines of connection with nature.

4.) Teach ways to support planetary health, including building relationships and empathy with the natural world, and learning to care for and steward local environments.

Quotes from the book Anthill, a novel by E.O. Wilson that greatly appeals to me (Bernie).

Raff's learning was kinesthetic, which meant it employed actions that engaged all the senses, and it was channeled by instinct.

To learn a frog in a full and lasting manner, you must find one where it lives in nature, watch it, listen to, it if it is calling, capture it, put it in a jar and keep it a while.

Study it there, release it next to the edge of the water where you found it, watch it kick away and submerge out of sight.

The concept of frog will be with you forever if you follow this kind of education.

You can pick up additional information from science and literature and myth, and all those things you have learned at school, but you will be better rooted in the full reality of frog. You will care about frog too, like nobody else. Pg 123, 124.

He undertook what small children do when stripped of mechanical toys and playmates and placed in a natural environment. They explore. They become hunter-gathers. Pg 119

What do you love about nature in Vermont?

What would you miss if it disappeared?

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