It is back-to-school time and most parents take their children’s education seriously. How about your children’s environmental education? If your family hikes and camps, your children probably have considerable environmental knowledge. Unfortunately, many children don’t get opportunities to interact with the natural world.
As a child, I was expected to change my clothes after school and then stay out of my mom’s way until dinnertime. Unless the weather was really bad, that meant going outside to play. Depending on my age and where we were living at the time, I would ride my bike or my horse; walk to the river, the beach, the forest or a local park; roller skate; play hopscotch, tetherball or other games with my friends; or engage in other fresh-air activities.
Children of my generation spent a lot of their youth out outdoors. Often today’s parents are justifiably concerned about letting their kids have that degree of freedom. If you are not much of a hiker or camper, think about involving your children in the garden. Mowing the lawn and weeding are OK as chores to justify an allowance, but make sure they do fun stuff too.
Here is a little quiz to test your child’s knowledge of the natural world. Many of the questions were developed for a quiz game we do with 4-H youth at the Evergreen State Fair. See how well your kids do. The answers are below.
1. Name three common beneficial insects.
2. What can you learn by counting the rings on the stump of a tree that has been cut down?
3. Name three things that plants need to grow.
4. Describe a method of preserving flowers.
5. Have you ever made a daisy chain or a willow whistle? Can you make a whistle with a blade of grass?
6. I’m a very tall plant and every day I try to follow the sun across the sky with my yellow flowers. What plant am I?
7. Name some flowers with a nice strong fragrance.
8. What can you grow to snack on right out in the garden?
9. What plant was used by Northwest native people for shelter, transportation and even clothing?
10. What phase is the moon in and is it waxing or waning?
* n n
Here are the answers, which may give you some ideas for projects to get your children outside.
1. Lady beetles, lacewings, spiders, ground beetles, syrphid flies, bees and others. Visit the library to find books and articles that can help parents, as well as the kids, learn about our insect friends.
2. The age of the tree when it was cut. Look for where the rings are fat and where they are skinny to see how good a year it was for the tree.
3. Water, sunlight, soil, nutrients (fertilizer) and air. Consider your child’s garden failures as scientific experiments from which they will learn this.
4. Press in a flower press or book (the phone book works well); use silica gel or glycerin; hang to dry; or photograph, paint or sketch them.
5. If not, give it a try.
6. I’m a sunflower. Harvesting and roasting the seed can be a fun family project or you can leave them for the birds. Also try growing pumpkins for Halloween carving and for the edible seeds.
7. Rose, honeysuckle, carnations, hyacinth, lily, lavender, heliotrope, sweet peas, etc. Think about growing and fragrance garden and making sachets or potpourris.
8. My favorites are any of the berries as well as carrots, cherry tomatoes and shelling peas.
9. Besides wood for longhouses and canoes, Western red cedars provided bark and roots for weaving.
10. This depends on when you read this article. Today’s date, Sept. 1, 2005, the moon will be a tiny sliver waning to the new moon on Sept. 3 and then waxing until the full moon on the Sept. 18
Holly Kennell is the Snohomish County extension agent for Washington State University Cooperative Extension. Master gardeners answer questions on weekdays at WSU Cooperative Extension – Snohomish County, 600 128th St. SE, Everett, WA 98208. Call 425-338-2400.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
