We Speak for the Trees!

Today, the Urban Naturalists visited Blackstone Park, once again, to assess the trees in the area! We learned how to identify quite a few species of trees! Jacqui took us on a tree hunt in Blackstone Park where she introduced us to a variety of good-smelling trees.

Jacqui talks to us about bark shape
and color

Some of the trees in our forest are
pretty tall!

Jacqui shows off her favorite tree!

Armani was pretty excited to find a
Sweet Birch, which smelled
like peppermint!

Urban Naturalists getting pumped about trees!

Posing with some trees!

We were able to identify 3 trees in the forest: 

• Black Birch (also known as Sweet Birch) smells and tastes a bit like peppermint when you peel off a bit of its bark
• Beech trees are known for having very smooth bark covering their trunk 
• Mountain Ash has a compound leaf! This means, their leaves are made up of many groups of smaller leaves

We took some notes on these trees and even did some bark rubbings! 

Urban Naturalist John did a bark
rubbing on a the Black Birch

Urban Naturalist Sophia did a GREAT
scientific illustration of the tree

We then ventured closer to the Seekonk River towards the bottom of the hill to see what trees we could find below. We found a few fun specimens:

• Sumac - not to be confused with poison sumac! The sumac tree has the most beautiful red leaves during the autumn and grows big clumps of berries! 
• Sassafras - the leaves of a sassafras tree looks like a dinosaur footprint or a ghost. Even cooler than that - the tree smells like Fruity Pebbles if you scratch it! 
• Red Maple - also called a Swamp Maple. This tree turns a beautiful red color in autumn and is our state tree!

Checking out our Sassafras Tree!

It smells like Fruity Pebbles!

Finally, we finished up our day by playing Nature Ninja! It's a game of quick reactions and tactical movements. Check out the start of our game - where everyone must jump back and yell as loud as they can before becoming silent statues:

First Park Day!

Today, the Urban Naturalists checked out Blackstone Park in Providence! We took an exploratory hike and found some pretty cool things out in the park!

There's a Fungus Among Us! 

The Urban Naturalists found a variety of fungi species around the park! We were very intrigued by the different colors, sizes, shapes and patterns of the different species. We did notice that all the fungus was growing in dark, damp places and generally on dead trees and logs. 

Check out this cool fungus we found on one of our trees!

One Urban Naturalist takes a photo for her collection

Whoa! Bright Pink Fungus! 

We had a few colors of the same shaped fungus. Could
they be related?

All About the Trees

We then explored the forest to check out some of the plants in the area. We found a variety of tree species and a few interesting plants we've never noticed before. Many of the Urban Naturalists took home some leaves to press in their nature journals.

Checking out this Hot Pink Pokeberry Plant!

What a crazy plant!

All of these leaves had holes in them! Who's eating
our plants?

Reptiles Leaving Traces

A very interesting find was a bunch of snake sheds on a tree stump! Snakes shed their skin in one giant piece when they are growing. The snakes were clearly using a tree stump to help scratch off their old skin - leaving behind their sheds.

One of our Urban Naturalists found some snake sheds!

You can even see the eye hole on this one!

What is Observation?

Today, in Urban Naturalist, we used our Power of Observation! We learned how important it is to observe things in nature for special details that help to identify the object. We had a lesson on Scientific Illustration and one of our very artistic students, Jaida, assisted fellow Urban Naturalists by offering helpful tips about drawing!

Jaida assists a student with their drawing

One student's drawing and labels

Her work certainly paid off! 

We then were able to observe and learn about a Cornsnake named Corny! To learn a bit about cornsnakes, click here to be directed to the National Zoo's website on Cornsnakes.

We then went outside in the schoolyard to see what types of plants and animals we could observe out there. We discovered that this year's group of Urban Naturalists are EXPERT grub catchers! We collected and observed some of our specimens before playing a fun game! 

One of our Urban Naturalists holds our specimen jar!

Some of the critters we found! 

All in all, we had a great day enjoying the wonderful weather and utilizing the Power of Observation!!!!

Fall Session is Here!

Kicking off the Session

Fall Session is upon us! We started off our Fall Session of Urban Naturalist on Monday this week. We were VERY excited to not only welcome some energetic NEW recruits, but also 7 past Urban Naturalists too!

We started off my making a fun contract we can all abide by - including the instructors! We then made posters to display these rules in our new journals.

One Urban Naturalist hard at work on a poster!

What's that Biofact?

We then observed a very interesting biofact. A biofact is a preserved item that was a part of or made by a plant or animal. The Urban Naturalists made inferences and observations about the biofact. Some of the thoughts about the Mystery Biofact were: 

- the biofact is a hive for some animals

- the biofact was dung from a beetle

- the biofact was a left over acorn or nut that could possibly have been chewed by a squirrel

- there were holes on the top and bottom of the biofact

- one side of the biofact had a white streak across it

Check it out! What do you think it is? Scroll over the photo to find out!

To learn more about the animal that creates this Mystery Object, click on the link below to be directed to the National Geographic Website about it! 

Mystery Object Information!