NATURE JOURNALING AND WATERSHEDS

     The focus of this project has been Nature Journaling and how it can best be used as a technique/tool for helping students learn about nature.  The model for this approach has been the use of questioning, observing (through text, drawing, and images), and then attempting to answer some of those initial questions using what’s been learned by observing.      For the final component of this project we would like to ask you to tell us what you’ve learned about journaling over the course of this project.  An exploratory approach would be to address the following questions regarding your use of journals with your students/children: • What did we do and why? • How did it work, or not? • How could it be made better and/or more meaningful in terms of techniques, skills, materials and resources?  Some examples might be: “I would definitely spend classroom time on basic drawing skills before going outside – and here’s how I would do that….”, or “I found that having students ask question

  Some great new Nature Journaling from Sam Killion's Fredericksburg City Schools class.      "I tried out nature journaling at the end of the school year and my kids loved it.  We created simple little booklets.  The first day, we went outside and drew whatever we saw.  The next time I took the microscopes and students either could draw or use it (the next time I would want to work on translating what they saw using the microscope into the journals).  The last time we did it we talked about diagraming and students practicing diagraming something they saw in nature." Student drawings Great student work from a collaboration between an Art Teacher, Meredith Stalker, and School Librarian Megan Laskowski at Courtland Elementary in Spotsylvania county.      "Pictures from journaling Megan Laskowski and I did with third graders from our last week of school. We used one-35 minute art/library class period to introduce nature journaling and model the experience together and a