Nature Rangers Camp Review 2014

T.A.S.K.S.-teamwork, action, skills, knowledge and sharing...those were the main ideas the Nature Rangers of Tifft Nature Preserve focused on this past week!

We learned teamwork through survival shelter building, games like Insanity and Crocodile River and our Japanese knotweed work project with Mr. Dave.

We took action against bully plants like Japanese knotweed and learned about some other bully plants at Tifft.

Skill-learning included orienteering, survival skills, telescopes, binoculars, fishing, terrestrial and aquatic macroinvertebrate sampling (looking for land and water bugs), firebuilding and stalking prey.

So much knowledge...astronomy, different habitats at Tifft, different types of fish, all about the super cool Sun, edible insects, monarch butterflies, waste and energy.

Hopefully they shared some of these things (and more) with you throughout the week. We also made a sign for all the volunteers that helped us that will be included in a thank you card.

Some big highlights for the campers were:

• using natural materials to build a survival shelter, and the survivial rules of 3
• fishing
• superhero sidewalk shadows
• solar oven-baked cookies
• sweepnetting for land bugs in the grassland
• dipnetting for water bugs in the marsh
• helping Mr. Dave with the Japanese knotweed work project (getting rid of an invasive (bully) plant
• searching for and finding a monarch caterpillar and watching it grow
• going in the portable planetarium and learning about the stars and constellations
• edible fires and roasting marshmallows on a real fire

How the 5 days flew by! Not sure what some of this stuff is...quiz your campers and see how much they remember!
I enjoyed getting to know each camper and I hope they had a great time working with all of us. They accomplished their TASKS and earned their Nature Ranger badge (see beginning of entry).

Below is a slideshow of photos of campers throughout the week. There is a slight delay but it should start playing on its own.

2014 Scales, Scales, Scales Camp Review

What a great first week of camp we had at Tifft! We started off the week learning about reptiles and the difference between facts about them and myths that people have created. We then went on a hike looking for some of the reptilian inhabitants of the Preserve. Our search was not very successful, yielding only a few turtles hanging out in the marsh. We did get to see a turtle nest that a predator had dug up about a month ago! We had a special visitor Monday afternoon, who brought many of her slimy and scaly friends with her. While the slimy friends aren't reptiles, it was a nice way to compare and contrast reptiles and amphibians. All the adults present were very impressed with the campers knowledge about reptiles and amphibians. 

Day 2 we moved onto the most difficult to guess scaly animals (reptiles and fish were easy to figure out!), butterflies and moths! We went on a butterfly and moth scavenger hunt and found that early July when there is a late spring isn't the best time for caterpillars and chrysalises/cocoons, but we did get to see many different kinds of moths and butterflies flitting about. We did a matching game and then a reinforcement activity about the difference between moths and butterflies and also what they have in common. Snack was especially yummy, turning a banana into a caterpillar and then into a butterfly! 

Day 3 was much awaited since some of the campers got hints that it would be the day we'd finally go fishing, and oh what a morning it was! We were not going to let the rain keep us in and got everyone in rain gear, only to have the clouds part and the sun appear a short time later. The hooks were barely hitting the water and the fish were already biting! We had many friends who caught their first ever fish, and only 2 of the group that did not catch any at all. We had purchased 4 containers of red worms, each with supposedly 24 worms and each worm was split into at least 2 pieces of bait. We had 17 campers, and fished for about an hour and a half. Meghan decided this sounded like time to do some math. During lunch everyone reported the number of fish they caught and assuming that no one was telling a fish story, we added up all the numbers, figured out how many worms we had and found that 17 campers + 1 1/2 hours + 192 worms = 59 fish!!!!!!! That is the best day of fishing anyone at Tifft can remember. We then went over fish anatomy, went fishing indoors with magnets and played Pin a Fin on the Fish. It was a very exciting and memorable day. 

It was already our last day of camp and with it came the rain, and rain, and more rain. We took advantage of a rainy morning inside to finish up some projects and play some games. We had a snake race and found that most of us did not make very good snakes! We played a game using only our sense of touch to try and identify and then draw what we could only feel inside of a bag. It was tricky! By afternoon all the time inside was just too much, and we had to get out. Some of us were afraid that the little bit of rain we encountered would make us melt, it must be because we are so sweet. We ended the week with one of Meghan and Kimberly's favorite activities, turtle races, trying to get our paper turtle to the finish line before anyone else. 

We definitely had a wonderful week with a great bunch of friends, human and scaly!

Here is a photo album so you can see some of our adventures: