What’s under a log?

Summer camp is a great time for kids to unwind and explore things in ways that aren’t possible at school. And in “nature study,” it’s exciting for them to discover plants and creatures they’ve read about, or watched on TV, but never observed first hand—from monarch butterflies to the newts and salamanders that cross forest paths after a rain.

At YMCA Camp Skycrest, where I work, the morning is divided into offerings as varied as fishing, swimming, arts and crafts, Indian lore, sports and “nature”—the last a term I balked at when I was myself a camper.

At age 10, I hated tagging behind a counselor who identified various trees or stopped periodically to explain what we were seeing and doing. And I still rebel at this kind of “nature walk.” Where a walk is over-programmed, it may inhibit dialogue between participants and there’s little encouragement for kids to explore on their own, to pick ripe blueberries or to skip flat stones onto a pond.

The title of my own nature program at Camp Skycrest is “Outdoor Adventure” and the aim is to encourage boys and girls to find things on their own, from caterpillars to the salamanders and millipedes that live under rotting logs. We also remind them to tread softly. “The forest belongs to the plants and animals who live here,” we tell them, “so let’s be very careful and leave things as we find them.”