Teaching about Nature Has Many Faces. Don’t Limit It to Biology
Triggering our children’s curiosity is key
My body floats on the sea. A calm, Mediterranean sea. Salt tickles my ears. I listen deeply with my mind and my soul. Do I hear dolphins calling out? To me? To their friends?
Diatoms enter my lungs with every breath I take and feed me. Microbial algae making oxygen out of light. What a world of wonder!
But the sea floating is a memory now that I give a workshop in a planetary science museum in my home country The Netherlands. Can I give these memories to the children too? Do they even get outdoors these days?
My last teaching was outdoors and I showed them open and closed pine cones. Moist gives movement to engineering. Fascinating and a new experience to most.
We played games. Threw the cones around.
And it got wild. I like wild. Rewilding our souls and mind Is what I like most.
Nature is so much more than facts of biology and ecology. Nature needs to be felt. Explored. Connected to. And then, we can innovate with her susprising insights in technical rules and formulas. The language of nature is geometry and dynamic math.
