04 June 2012

Spring at the MNHC!

As Allison said, so many exciting things have been happening this spring!

May ushered in the time of the year when we hold field trips for our Visiting Naturalist in the Schools program. This year, I had the opportunity to help with field trips held at Council Groves, Maclay Flats, and the Native Plant Garden at Fort Missoula, but field trips were also going on at a few other places. All hands were on deck. The warm weather (or, mostly warm) brought lots of exciting animals and plants out and about for all the naturalists to see.

For those of you who don’t know, Visiting Naturalist in the Schools is a program for grade schoolers (mostly fourth graders) aimed at helping young students develop their artistic, writing, and scientific skills to explore the world as naturalists. We do two “field study” sessions; the first is in October and the second is in May. Slightly different stations occur depending on the season. In May, we have three stations: the wildlife hike, the solo hike, and the insect study. These stations at the end of the year are especially exciting because we get to put all of the lessons we learned throughout the school year into practice. 

The next few posts are all about a few of the very exciting things we saw and experienced during VNS field trips in May!

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