2/10/12 Ridley Creek

 Today we went to Ridley Creek State Park for our Nature Walk.  In the picture on the left you can see the group that came to Nature Club today.  There weren't many of us but we had fun!  We did a small experiment where you throw a stick into the creek to see where it goes.  We concluded that if you threw the stick farther it would travel along down the river not getting stopped by the rocks that were scattered all over.   

In the picture below you see a picture of lichen.  We saw this lichen (like-en) on a tree trunk.  The other lichen was on sticks and branches that were on the ground.  These are a few facts about lichen.  Lichen have a symbiotic relationship with the organism they are living on.  Lichens are fungi. You can learn more about lichens at Link for Lichens. 

2/2/12 Riverbend

Did you all have fun at Riverbend? I sure did! We went bird watching (although we did not see many) but we had a lot of fun hiking a small path. Did any of you see the old stone walls? They were from the Civil War Era. If you noticed the ruins of a house by the parking lot it was probably burned down. I thought it was pretty cool! The two birds are (left) a red tailed hawk (right) a duck. We did some comparing of the two species of birds. For instance, a duck eats fish but the hawk eats mostly dead animals.

Snow!

We woke up this morning to a beautiful blanket of snow on the ground.  We had fun spending our Saturday morning playing in the snow and shoveling our neighbor's sidewalk.  Aren't the holly berries beautiful?!

1/19/12 Tinicum

Yesterday we went to the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum,  Tinicum for short.  At Tinicum we made lap books on vertebrates.  First we cut out pictures of Mammals, Amphibians, Reptiles, Fish, and Birds.  Then arranged them in a file folder. After that we went on a Nature walk around the Refuge.  We spotted many birds including a few Carolina Wrens ( All About Birds - Carolina Wren   and  Carolina Wren call) and some Robins All About Birds - Robin.  There were no amphibians, reptiles or fish to be seen because the water was frozen and the tempature was in between 20-30degrees. Take a look at our pictures!

Another Trip

On October 14th we went to Sugartown Strawberries for Nature club. 
When we got there the sky was very cloudy.  As you can see from the pictures we had a lot of fun studying the clouds and opening pumpkins.  We studied the seeds, outer shell, and inner core.  After about 45min.  it started to rain.  All of the kids ran to the cart that had an awning to shelter us.  The rain was pelting the awning really hard.  It was pouring off the edges like a huge waterfall.  After that we went on a hayride to pick some pumpkins. We had a lot of fun on that adventure!  

Our Trip to Indian Orchards

Beehive

 On October 6th our Nature club went to Indian Orchards.  We got a tour of their orchard, tasty and sour apples to try and a look at their beehive.  Afterwards some of us picked apples.  The picture on the left top is a picture of the beehive that we saw.  We couldn't go to close or the bees would sting.  Honey bees only sting once and die after the sting.  They sting if they think that they are in danger.  After that we went on a tour of the orchards looking at ripe or rotten apples.  we also learned a little bit about other kinds of fruit like pears, and apricots.  For our payment all of the kids had to weed the blueberry bushes.  There was a lot of debris around the plants so we were pulling pretty hard.Over all this trip was lots of fun.

Rotten apple with a fly on it.

Paying for our tour

Our First Nature Outing ~ Haverford College

On September 15, 2011 our Nature Club had it's official beginning.  Even though the weather was questionable, we had over 30 people attend. We walked on a path with muddy parts and a few bridges.  This picture was taken of a frog that was nestled under the roots of a huge fallen tree. This is a picture of the group in front of  the tree.  Just the roots its self were probably 12 feet high. We were gaping as we came around the bend.

A frog nestled in the roots of a huge fallen tree.