Love of Nature, Music and Art Unites Humanity

Yesterday I was talking to a friend who recently travelled to rural Kenya to volunteer at a new school. The school has been established between tribes that have historically warred with each other, and now their children attend school together. Today's image on the Rainforest Site reminds me of this process of transcending political barriers through education and also our simple shared love of the things that are truly important in life. I think it's important we acknowledge these ties more often. Though most people seem vastly different, I think everyone can see beauty in a flower or tree. Though we might listen to different music or have different opinions on art, I can't think of anyone I know who doesn't like music or art at all ....

Fallbrook Art Center Field Trip

Our first field trip of this Fall was to Fallbrook, for a beautiful and inspiring show titled "Art of the Earth," and then across the street to the Gem and Mineral Society. Art Center Director Mary Perhacs gave our small group an informative tour of the many pieces on display in their ever-changing gallery and explained how each artist used materials from the earth (soil, rock, oil, etc.) to create the art. The kids enjoyed getting up close to the artwork, which included delicate and strong ceramics, paintings, stonecarving, glass, and even a marionette puppet. A favorite piece was a ceramic sculpture that survived last year's Fallbrook fires and gained interesting new texture in the high heat.

The kids loved the glow-in-the-dark display at the Gem and Mineral Society, along with learning which gems and minerals have been found in the local area. After our visits downtown, we met at Live Oak Park for a picnic under the oaks.

Santa Margarita River Reserve Hike

On Friday February 15 our group enjoyed a beautiful naturalist-guided hike at the Santa Margarita River Reserve near Fallbrook. This well-protected area, on property owned and managed by SDSU, includes the only fully free-flowing river in Southern California.

A gorgeous day and an enthusiastic guide, Dave, greeted us at the gate. We began our hike along the Stone Creek trail with a lesson on identifying poison oak [and an explanation that even if you can identify the plant by its leaves, there are many ways the plant can elude detection]. We also marvelled at the variety of wild things including wild cucumber and various sages and we identified signs of wildlife [listened to bird calls and woodpecking, examined coyote scat, compared dog footprints to wildlife footprints, and learned about the differences between moss and lichen]. We climbed up out of the creek bed into an area of chapparal and then ended the hike with a brisk run through an old orange grove.

Lake Cleanup & Article in Press Enterprise

Our club participated in a litter cleanup at Lake Elsinore's inlet channel, and we were accompanied by a reporter and photographer from the Press Enterprise! Visit pe.com to read more of the article by Claudia Bustamante, Club's field trips help children learn about nature

Visit to Pechanga's Great Oak

On Friday we had a special field trip to a very special tree, the Great Oak on the Pechanga Reservation in Temecula.

According to Pechanga's website "The Great Oak is the largest natural-growing, indigenous coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia ) wi'aashal tree in the United States and is estimated to be anywhere from 850 to 1,500 years old, making it one of the oldest oak trees in the world."

Our tour guide invited us to enter the great oak through a tunnel-like opening in the huge canopy and then shared many interesting facts and legends about the incredible tree. It would have been enough to simply stagger back in admiration, or to spend all day playing "house" in the many rooms the canopy made, but we enjoyed hearing about the history of the arborgryphs [tree graffiti], the circumference of the immense trunk and branches, and more. Some of the branches would measure 3-7 feet around, and the trunk measures 22 feet in circumference. You can do the math: if each foot represents about a hundred years of growth, how old is this tree? [Hint: it may be more than the above estimate.] We found some acorns on the ground and observed the effects of drought on this main traditional food source.

We were also treated to a tour of the Pechanga Youth's Indian village. We sat in a large sweat lodge and peeked into several huts that demonstrate the different types of building materials & construction used by peoples in different areas. We admired the granary used to store acorns for up to two years [large woven basket-type structures suspended off the ground on posts] and the pottery that the Pechanga Youth are learning to create.

We hope to follow this field trip with a nature-based Native American craft in early October. Stay tuned!

New Class--Environmental Studies for Kids

Kids ages 5 to 12 are invited to join us for outdoor learning fun!

Thursdays from 10:00 – 11:30 a.m.
May 10th – June 14th


Kids will learn concepts of ecology and sustainability through fun
science experiments and hands-on outdoors experience. They will learn
the basics of
how to think ecologically, how to grow plants, how to take care of the
soil, and how to identify plants, trees, and animals. Students will
learn nature observation techniques that indigenous people have used
to spot wildlife and other exciting skills that can be used for
life-long learning adventures.

Lessons include:
nature identification
heightened sensory techniques
basic food web analysis
sustainable gardening
biology, soil and plant science
field journaling

Experiments include:
Pizza box passive solar heater
worm composting
red cabbage pH meter
soil composition experiment
terrarium building

This special 6-week course will be taught by Thomas Meli, B.A.
Anthropology with Environmental Science Minor. Course will be held at
Creative Learning Circle's home-school in Wildomar. Possible field
trip to Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Preserve! (With parent
accompaniment—$2 day use fee required.)

Fee: $90 for 6-week course, including materials.
$20 nonrefundable deposit due May 4 will be applied to tuition fee.

To enroll, contact eniciafisher@gmail.com, or better yet, come meet
Tom this afternoon at the Earth Fair 2-4 at Mission Trail Library!

Tom is VERY interested in offering a higher-level Science of
Sustainability course to teens and adults. Let me know if there's any
interest in that.
--
Enicia Fisher, M.Ed.
Integrated Arts Teacher/Homeschooling Mom
http://www.creativelearningcircle.com/

Earth Fair a Success

Our Earth Fair last Friday was a wonderful success. THANKS to all the kids who worked so hard creating beautiful, informative, and inspiring displays. And THANKS to the Mission Trail Library, especially Manager Jennie Jackson, for her hospitality and the use of the Community Room.

I hope to get some photos uploaded soon of the Young Naturalists with their displays, but for now I'll describe them as well as I can and share some of what I learned. For the sake of privacy, I'll just use initials of the kids.

One of the favorite exhibits was a vermiculture display shared by 5-y-o G.B. Kids were thrilled to take turns holding the special live guests--worms--and to learn about how they turn kitchen waste into precious garden soil.

C.F. shared a tri-fold poster full of data and photographs regarding soil and hazardous waste. He included photos and samples of earth-friendly cleaning products and toilet paper, giving visitors a very practical and simple way to help protect the environment!

A Lake Elsinore family created a display titled "Not in My Backyard" which featured numerous photographs of the trash dumped in their own backyard (they live on acreage behind an elementary school). These kids called for action to prevent dumping in their own community and plan to launch a local anti-dumping campaign in the upcoming months.

A six-year-old homeschool girl complemented her own anti-litter poster display with a couple of dioramas featuring wildlife (including an "ocean" scene with water!), while a portable DVD player played her home-made movie. Her "Nature Saver" video portrayed young girls on a picnic (played by dolls). When one friend litters, the other friends kindly explain why litter might harm wildlife and also makes nature less beautiful. The litter-bug is convinced to be a "Nature Saver" too and vows not to litter any more!

E.C. created a hands-on-fun & learning display about choosing earth-friendly toys. His exhibit explained why it's important to choose well-made toys, avoid toys with excess packaging and cheap plastic toys that break and become trash. He included sample toys and visiting kids enjoyed playing with the traditional wooden toys like Jacob's ladder or blocks and a few other toys that last from generation to generation in both quality and appeal.

L.C. created a visually appealing display on the effects of litter on wildlife, specifically styrofoam and plastic bag litter on ocean animals. Her display included a compelling photo of a dissected bird whose stomach was full of all kinds of trash. She also explained that turtles and other ocean wildlife will often eat bits of styrofoam or mistake a plastic bag for a jellyfish, and this will often kill them. [The weekend after our Earth Fair my family visited Doheny State Beach and we kept picking up balloons, bags, styrofoam cups, etc. off the beach as we enjoyed a fantastic display of pelicans and other beach birds.]

Alden (my son) offered a display on the relationship between increased cell phone usage and habitat loss in Africa. A few months ago he was bugging me about getting his own cell phone because so many of his friends have one. When he was unconvinced by the mere fact that he is only nine and I don't intend for him to have a cell phone until he drives a car, I shared a little of what I had recently learned about mining for the ore that's used in cell phones and how gorillas, elephants, and other wildlife are rapidly loosing habitat partially because of the incredible demand for this ore. He immediately vowed NEVER to have a cell phone (we'll see about that) and then decided to educate others about reducing demand for cell phones by recycling and resisting the urge to upgrade for each new feature offered by cell phone companies.

Lydia created an impassioned poster urging people to "save the rainforest" by eating less beef, using less paper and oil, and recycling cell phones. She had to explain to visitors the relationship between the beef industry and deforestation and a few other issues (a lot for a 5-year-old, I admit, but she was eager to share the complexities with any interested listener.)

We had several homeschool visitors and a few people from the general public stop by. An elder couple stayed for at least an hour, poring over each exhibit with great interest and asking questions of the kids. We sure appreciated their interest and appreciation of our work!

We are excited to take this display "on the road" for another opportunity. We'll be sharing our displays at another community Earth Festival on May 20 at Lake Skinner. This event will be from 11:00 to 4:00 and is sponsored by the Resource Conservation District, Southwest Riverside County Multispecies Reserve, and Riverside County Parks. Besides our exhibit, there will be live animals and music, solar cup event at the lake, hybrid cars, composting information, and more. See you at the Lake!