Climate Change Impacts on Nature in the Kawarthas

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  • April
  • Activities, Animals, Educator & Parent Workshops, Intermediate Videos, Intermediate Workshops, Plants, Senior Videos, Senior Workshops, Senior Years Deeper Activities, Student Workshops, Videos, Workshops
Video Link

Size of Group

any

Age Range

14-18 years

How to:

Join naturalist Drew Monkman as he explores the impacts of Climate Change on nature in southern Ontario.  Watch the 45 minute video and then discuss what you could do to draw public attention to the issue.  Explore some of the options available to us to help reduce the impacts of Climate Change.

Bees Please

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  • April
  • Activities, Early Years Deeper Activities, Insects, Intermediate Years Deeper Activities, Middle Years Deeper Activities, Senior Years Deeper Activities

Materials Needed

  • Native Plants or Seeds
  • Garden Tools
  • Sunny Location
Bees Please Poster

Size of Group

any

Age Range

4-18 years

How to:

Go on a walk looking for native bees.  Some are active early in spring, when early flowers begin to bloom.  Think about what you can do to help bees.  This could be as simple as letting a sunny space remain unmowed, or as detailed as planting a pollinator garden.  Some great native plants to start a pollinator garden include purple conflower, black-eyed Susan, culver’s root, blazing star, goldenrod and bergamot.  For more detailed information about regional plants for pollinators, visit the Pollinator Partnership Canada website.

Spring Birds

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  • April
  • Activities, Birds, Intermediate Years Quick Activities, Middle Years Quick Activities, Senior Years Quick Activities, Spring

Materials Needed

  • Spring Birds Checklists
  • Binoculars (if available)
  • Pencils
  • Clipboards
Spring Birds Blog
Spring Bird ID Sheet pg 1
Spring Bird ID Sheet pg 2

Size of Group

1-20

Age Range

3-18 years

How to:

Many migrating birds are returning or passing through southern Ontario during April and May.  They are very vocal in spring, and you can both look and listen for a wide variety of birds at this time.  Listen to our selection of common spring bird songs (in the Spring Birds Blog), and then go outdoors with copies of the Spring Bird ID sheets to see how many you can find.  You’ll see and hear different birds on different days and in different locations, so go out as many times as you can!

Indoor Seedlings

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  • April
  • Activities, Early Years Quick Activities, Middle Years Quick Activities, Plants, Spring

Materials Needed

  • Garden Seeds (tomatoes, peppers, lettuce etc.)
  • Potting Soil
  • Empty Toilet Rolls or other pots
Garden Indoors Poster

Size of Group

any

Age Range

4-10

How to:

Planting seeds indoors is a great way to welcome spring and get excited about homegrown foods.  An easy way to get your garden going is to save toilet rolls and use them as your seeding containers.  Follow the directions on the Garden Indoors poster and be sure to set your seedlings in a sunny window to grow.

Frog Watch

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  • April
  • Activities, Early Years Quick Activities, Frogs, Intermediate Years Quick Activities, Middle Years Quick Activities, Senior Years Quick Activities, Spring

Materials Needed

  • None - just access to a wetland
Frogwatch Poster

Size of Group

any

Age Range

any

How to:

Go for a walk and listen for frogs.  Can you hear any that peep?  Do they sound like ducks quacking or a banjo being plucked?  A visit to the naturewatch website can help you identify early spring frog calls.  Also, check out our own blog of local frog calls.

Kim’s Spring Activity List

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Kim's Spring Activity Guide

Our Outdoor Activity Consultant, Kim, has rustled up some exciting Spring Activities to keep our Pathway community busy!

1. Kites

learningliftoff.com

As spring can be breezy, it’s a great time to learn about wind and make and fly a kite
 

 2. Help the Birds 

Encourage birds to nest around your property by providing mud and nesting materials.

 

MUD

  • Choose a spot at the edge of a flower or vegetable garden to establish a mud hole. Use a hose or a bucket of water to wet the earth.
  • Squish the soil using your hands, a stick or a shovel, until it reaches a muddy consistency.
  • Try to find clay soil. Don’t worry if the mud contains small bits of grass or other plant fibres. 

NEST LINING MATERIALS

  • Stuff a mesh onion bag with materials such as dead twigs, pine needles, leaves, feathers, moss, dry grass (as long as it’s chemical-free), strips of bark, and plant fluff from plants such as cattails or cottonwood.
  • Hang the bag from a clothesline or tree branch in your backyard.
  • Some materials that were previously recommended for nesting are now considered unsafe. Do not provide hair (human or animal), string, yarn or loose bits of thread, as birds can become entangled in these materials. Likewise, do not provide pieces of felt or cloth, dryer lint, plastic, tinsel, cellophane or aluminum foil; these can be choking hazards or cause internal blockage.

3. Create a Wild Bee Sanctuary

For a detailed outline visit this link at the David Suzuki Organization 

  • Fill your yard with flowers
  • Plant native
  • Go organic
  • Add water  
 

b. Make a Bee Bath

Use a shallow plate and place it at the ground level where you’ve noticed bee activity. Place a few flat stones in the plate to create landing pads or islands and safe places to crawl out should they fall in. Add fresh water but don’t submerge the stones. Birds and butterflies will use it, too. Replace the water every few days to eliminate mosquito larvae… more here

Make a bee home

Honeybees and bumblebees live in social colonies, but most wild bee species are solitary. About two-thirds of solitary nesting bees use tunnels in the ground to lay their eggs. About one-third use hollowed-out plant stems or tunnels in dead trees or fallen logs… Want to discover the best homemade housing you can make for bees in your backyard? Read more here

4. Plant a Pollinators Garden 

Check out this amazing resource from Bee City Canada on how to create a habitat. and Follow it up with the Planting for Pollinators blog from Kidsgardening.org 


5. Create a Spring Checklist 

With your kids, make a checklist of things that make you think of spring. Go on a hike in the forest, check off all of the things that you see and feel on your list. Try to ensure that the list is multi-sensory, so things like feeling the warmth of the sun and different smells of the seasons are also on the list. Feel free to add to the lists as you are walking and noticing more things.

6. Colours of Spring

Pick up some paint chips from a hardware store. On your outdoor adventure, hand them out to your kids and see if they can find matches to many different colours. They may think it’s impossible, but this gets them to really look at items to find a match. Remember to look up, blues often match the sky!

If paint chips are not available to you, crayons will work too.

7. Meet a Tree in your Neighbourhood

Have your kids pick a tree that you really get to know over time. They can get to know it in so many different ways (draw, take bark rubbings, look with a magnifier, or use a camera). In the spring, they will be looking for the buds starting to explode into leaves. Most people think that buds form in the spring, but with careful observation, you will see that buds are actually on the tree all winter!

8. Disc Golf

Get your family involved in this fun, active, burgeoning sport. Peterborough has three easily accessible, free courses for you to enjoy. The courses are at the north end of the Riverview Park and Zoo, TASS, and Hamilton Park just south of Jackson Park. In outlying areas of Peterborough, there is one at Mount Julian Viamede and Ennismore Waterfront Park. Or, you can make your own course anywhere you would like by simply identifying objects as your targets. All you need is a frisbee, or a disc, and a good arm! www.peterboroughdiscgolf.ca

9. Take a Hike

Three Activities for Earth Day

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Three Activities for Earth Day

Here are three wonderful activities from our Outdoor Activity Consultant, Nature Nancy, to celebrate Earth Day. Enjoy making a ‘Sense Poem’, capture ‘Nature through the Window’, and find out ‘Who Lives Nearby’. Don’t forget to report your Landmark to get points on the Pathway Individual and Group Leaderboards and be entered into the monthly prize draw.

1. SENSE POEM (GR. 3-8)- USING ALL YOUR SENSES TO CREATE A POEM

How many words can you think of to describe the smell of a flower? How many words can you think of to describe the movement of a cat?

Take a sheet of paper and a pencil and find a comfortable place to sit outside. Sit there for several minutes and use all of your senses (likely not taste unless you brought out a snack). Ask yourself all of these questions.

What do I feel?

What do I smell?

What do I see?

What do I hear?

What do I taste (this can be imagined)?

Answer each question with some words that fit with your experience.

For example, I see….bright yellow flowers, fluffy clouds, windy trees, busy ant.

In order to create your sense poem, take away each of the questions and just use the answers that you wrote next to the question. Try your own sense poems and compare on different days/time of day.

Here is my example:

Monday Morning by Nature Nancy 

Cool wind, tickling grass, warm sun
Oats roasting, fresh-cut grass, sweet lilac waft
Bright yellow flowers, fluffy clouds, windy trees, busy ant
Honk, vroom, screech, caw, buzz, whoosh, chirp chirp Chocolate…Mmmmmm!

 2. Nature Through the Window (Gr. 3-8)- Creating a Frame in a window to observe and draw the out of doors

You will be looking at nature from inside and out. Follow these steps:

1. Make a frame using a piece of construction paper (or plain white paper) by cutting out a rectangle from the middle.

2. Find a window in your home and place the frame on it. You may be looking at a combination of things in nature and human-made items outside. Move your frame around the window and see if it changes what you see. What do you see? Birds, trees, weather, insects, flowers….roads, buildings? How did your scene change when you moved the frame?

3. Compare the smells, sounds, and feeling you detect when you are inside and compare that to when you go outside.

4. Leave your construction paper frame on a part of your window and sketch what you see through the frame.

 3. Who Lives Nearby? (Gr. 1-6) Creating a map of your neighbourhood and finding evidence of other creatures sharing our habitat.

  1. With paper and pencil in hand, walk around your neighbourhood and observe
    examples of creatures living in this habitat.
  2. In order to do this, you will need to make a map of the area that you are
    observing. When you find evidence of different creatures that you recognize then
    record it on your map. See the example to the left.
  3. For example, you may see a robin’s nest in a tree and will mark that on your map where it was found in your neighbourhood. Enjoy!