Assignment: Naturalist Lens

Learning from Nature: Naturalist Lens

Every week we'll practice and hone our observation skills by viewing the natural world through a particular "lens". This week, we'll keep it simple by using our NATURALIST lens. 


Each week you'll be asked to repeat the following steps:

  1. Visit your personally selected place in nature. 
  2. Spend at least 20 minutes in your place observing nature using the guiding questions I will provide to you each week (SEE STEPS BELOW).
  3. Document your observational experiences in a small notebook devoted to this activity (your nature journal).
  4. Supplement written notes with quick and detailed sketches, paintings, etc.
  5. Capture photographic images to document your observation process. Photos can be of your place and its organisms, you, as well as your sketches and your journal itself. Be creative!

 

THIS WEEK: NATURALIST LENS

  • Go outside.
  • Take a wander. (Be sure to wander in a place that you'll have access to for the next few weeks!)
  • Find a place. Identify a spot that feels good (safe and free of interruptions) and piques your interest or evokes a connection with you. A place with more natural surroundings is ideal (vs. concrete) but any place will do.
  • Get settled. Sit. Relax.
  • Take several deep breaths. Breathe.
  • Quiet your cleverness (meaning, slow your mind; try to receive rather than project)
  • Open your eyes. Open each of your senses! Don't forget to smell, touch, hear, and, yes, even taste your surroundings.
  • Observe. Spend at least 20 minutes taking in your natural surroundings.
  • Focus. Do not give up. Stay with it. Try to focus on something and just watch it. Really observe your place and its inhabitants. (SEE GUIDING QUESTIONS BELOW)
  • After 20 minutes, begin to document your observations in your notebook/journal. (You’ll want to make lots of notes, bulleted lists, diagrams, and sketches, etc., because you’ll be creating a blog post from your nature journal notes. This will help us to know your observation and journaling process.)
  • Note the date, time, location, weather, wind, cloud conditions
  • Ask yourself questions that are stimulated by your senses:
    • What do I see? What is a question that this sight evokes?
    • What do I hear? What question comes to mind when hearing this?
    • What do I smell? What does this smell make me wonder about?
    • What do I taste? What does this taste remind me of?
    • What do I feel? What is surprising about this texture?
  • Make quick sketches
  • Make detailed drawings
  • Make lists to organize your thoughts
  • Once you're done your observations (sketching and note taking), take a picture of your place, yourself, and any organisms that captured your attention. Name your place.
  • Leave your place just as you found it and go back inside when you’re ready.

Some guiding questions to stimulate your observations:

  • What relationships do you witness? Do you notice any patterns? How does color, light vs. dark, hard vs. soft, smooth vs. textured change in your place? Describe and/or sketch them.
  • What are some things you notice in your surroundings that have possibly been shaped by natural pressures, such as wind, rain, snow, ice, desiccation, decay, animal browsing, etc.? Describe and/or sketch them.
  • Do you see any ways that life has shaped the environment (rather than the environment shaping life)? For example, a tree root that cracks a concrete sidewalk. Describe and/or sketch them.
  • What habitat "edges" do you see? Where does one edge end and another begin? Why? Describe and/or sketch them.