1. Go on a hibernating bug hunt! Shine a light under bark looking for hibernating ladybugs, spiders, butterflies, or cocoons. Check out holes in trees; look on branch tips for sleeping moth eggs. On warmish days, watch for tiny pieces of dirt that seem to jump on the snow. These are snow fleas, more correctly called Springtails or Collembolan, tiny insects that scavenge the snow for bits of food. These bugs are what the tiny chickadees and woodpeckers are looking for as they probe with their beaks.
   
   
2. Go outside and find evidence of the different ways animals cope with winter. Migrating north to south and vertically, truly hibernating, napping, storing fat, camouflage, growing a thick coat, fluffing their feathers, sleeping in tree cavities, storing food, eating different foods, and shedding antlers are all ways animals adapt to winter.
   
   
3. Experiment with food choices of wintering birds at your feeder. Provide several choices in different feeders located near each other. Measure how much of each you put out. Record the daily temperature and note how much of each food is left at the end of each day. Is there a relationship between temperature and what birds eat? Try providing black oil sunflower seeds, raisins, nuts, natural peanut butter, and suet. Also, record the types of birds you see at your feeder and the general weather. This may help to explain some of what you see. What other things may affect the results? Try the same experiment in the spring during warmer weather to compare the results. How do the results compare? What conclusions, if any, can you draw from this? How would you change the experiment if you were to try it again?
   
   
4. Look closely for buds on trees and shrubs in winter. Most deciduous trees will form a winter bud in the fall to protect the developing leaf inside. Conifers do not form this bud until the spring. Try “forcing” a bud by taking a small cutting and placing it indoors in sugary water near a window for a week or so. What happens?
   
   
5. Listen to the sounds of winter. Inside your mitten, make a fist and hold it at shoulder height. For each sound you hear, raise one finger. How many different sounds can you hear? What kinds of sounds do you hear? You may want to write them down so you can compare them with sounds you hear at the same spot in the summer.
   
   
6. Really look at nature. Close your eyes and have someone else find something nearby from nature for you to look at. Have that person carefully lead you with your eyes closed to the object. When you get there, have him or her place your face so that you will be able to look directly at the item, within focusing distance. When the person touches your thumb, open your eyes and look at the object as if you are taking a picture, then when he or she touches your thumb again, close your eyes. With your eyes still closed, describe the object to the other person. You will have a vivid image in your mind, which you will not soon forget.
   
   
7. Follow animal tracks in the snow. A trail of tracks often tells a story of the habits of an animal in the winter. A tiny mouse scampers about on the snow surface looking for seeds that are blown by the winter wind, then darts back to its tunnel. A daring rabbit leaves the protection of a thicket and is grabbed by a hunting owl, the rabbit tracks disappear from the snow, and the wing brushing the surface of the snow leaves an imprint. Deep tracks indicate a large, heavy animal. Try leaving your own fake animal tracks that tell a story. Look for other signs such as nibbled twigs and dug holes.
   
   
8. Measure the snow. Determine how much snow has fallen to date and measure the snow pack to see how much has accumulated. Try melting a known volume of snow in a pot to see how much water is actually in snow. Compare its melted volume with the snow volume.
   
   
9. Measure and compare the temperatures of the air and snow. Calculate snow at 25 cm and snow at 100 cm. How would this help the animals that use the snow for protection from the cold? Would this help the animals hibernating under the snow? How? Try digging down to the soil surface in a natural area and brush away the snow to look for signs of animals living under the snow. Mouse tunnels, seeds, droppings, etc. can often be found. Make sure to fill in your hole after your search.
   
   
10. Determine how quickly ice changes and its thickness. From a secure area such as a permanent dock, chop a hole in the ice every week, starting with the first ice in the autumn, and measure the thickness of the ice. Record daily temperatures at the same time. Stop when the ice gets too thick to chop. Graph this data and try to explain why the ice thickness changed as it did.
    
    
11. Make a quinzee or snow fort. Measure the air temperature outside and go inside. Take the temperature several times in the first 10 minutes of sitting inside. What happens to the temperature? Why does this happen? What is the warmest temperature you can get inside the quinzee?

Summer Activities

1. Go on a bug hunt. Equip yourself with a baby food jar or bug jar and encourage look for natural life. Look under leaves and stumps (be sure to turn them back over), on tree trunks and leaves and in flowers. Handle the bugs gently and let them go when you are done. Name your favorite bug according to its colors, the way it moves, or something different about it.
   
   
2. Listen to the world around you. Sit and listen to the sounds of nature by closing your eyes and counting on your fingers the different sounds you hear. Compare natural vs. unnatural sounds. Try this in several different habitats such as in a field, near a pond, and in a forest, and compare the kinds and numbers of sounds heard.
   
   
3. Look at nature. Before a visit to a park, decorate two toilet paper rolls. Staple them together to make mini-binoculars. Take them outside for a game of “I Spy” and look for items from nature. Look for things nearby, in middle range, and far away.
   
   
4. Get a new perspective. Lie face upward under a large tree. Look into the branches. Can you see the top branch? What patterns can you see? What other things are present? You can pretend to be the roots of the tree in the soil. What do they feel like? What animals can you see moving around in the tree?
   
   
5. Use imagination. Choose an area with natural ground coverings such as leaves, cones, wild grass, etc. and sit down. Get six short pieces of straw or toothpicks. Pretend to shrink down to the size of an ant. Your job is to lead a nature walk for creatures the size of an ant by choosing six interesting things along a one-meter stretch of ground. Use your imagination!
   
   
6. Wet noses. Wet the underside of your nose with a small wet sponge. This improves your sense of smell, just as it does for deer and rabbits. Find familiar smells such as flowers to try, then go on to other things such as rubbing a leaf between your fingers and smelling or scratching a pine needle. Also, try moss, bark, or pitch, or grabbing a handful of leafy soil, etc.
   
   
7. Discover color in nature. Get ten old paint swatches of various natural colors from a paint store. Cut them into individual squares and take these to a natural area. One at a time, look for each color in nature. You will be amazed at what colors you can find if you really look!
   
   
8. Touching nature. Have someone blindfold you and lead you to a tree to get to know it by feeling the bark texture, finding branches, and any other way to recognize a specific tree without looking at it. Have the other person lead back to where you started. Now take off the blindfold and try to find your tree using your sense of touch to confirm it. What other senses helped you locate you tree? (Sounds, sense of balance, smells, warmth, etc.)
   
   
9. A nighttime experience. Go to a safe natural place at night with another person. Cover your flashlight with red plastic so you won’t startle the animals. Try out some of the ideas above to learn about plants and animals of the night. It takes about twenty minutes for your eyes to fully adjust from bright light to darkness.
   
   
10. A rainy day experience. Dress to stay dry but with your hands free (no umbrellas) and go out on a rainy day. Peek into puddles; listen for bird and frog calls. How many kinds of raindrops can you see? Can you find plants with a drip tip? Try to find out where animals go when it is raining.