What happens when you mix curious fourth graders, a love of nature, and a little inspiration from summer adventures? You get a classroom full of budding naturalists, eyes wide with wonder, creating field guides to explore the nature right outside their school doors.
The spark for this project came last spring when Torey Schmidt picked up Sheridan Community Land Trust’s pocket nature guides to the Red Grade Trails and Soldier Ridge Trail System to use with her own children. Week after week, they hiked and biked through their neighborhood, using the guides to identify plants and animals and check them off like a scavenger hunt. “It sparked so much joy, appreciation, and knowledge for the area around them,” she said. “I wanted to bring that to my class of fourth graders.”
And bring it she did! In mid-May, fourth graders at Highland Park Elementary dove into creating their own field guides, modeled after the SCLT pocket nature guides. In the classroom, students studied how field guides are organized and the types of facts they include. Then, they applied what they learned in the classroom by taking a walk around the school grounds and in the neighborhood, using the SCLT guides to identify local plants and animals while creating their own. They even saw and heard four sandhill cranes!
Highland Park Fourth Grade students utilized SCLT’s pocket nature guides to spark their creativity and learn about the nature that surrounds their school by creating nature guides of the plants, animals, and insects they found in the neighborhood around the school.
“We loved this day!” Torey said. “Walking with the field guides and stopping to identify plants and animals was exciting for us teachers as well as the kids.”
The excitement was contagious. Even students who had walked the school grounds before were amazed at how much more they noticed when they were on the lookout. “We were all surprised by how many different things we saw in such a small area!” Torey shared.
The activity changed many of the students’ perspectives, she added, saying there was “a little complaining” from some students on a similar walk earlier in the school year. This time was different.
“The task of searching for every little bug and listening for different birds was so exciting for everyone—they didn’t want to turn back at the end,” Torey Schmidt relayed.
But this wasn’t just an adventure—it was a hands-on learning opportunity, too. The activity was directly tied to the students’ fourth-grade curriculum. They made connections to their history lessons on the Oregon Trail and Lewis and Clark, and they explored life science concepts by researching the physical characteristics of different species. They read charts and informational texts, and they’ll even use their field guides in math to compare and convert measurements.
Student discoveries were both surprising and delightful. One student said they were thrilled to learn about a river and a fox living right nearby. Another was amazed by “how much stuff you see every minute,” and a third said they loved “all the cool things I saw and learning their names and being outside.” For one, the best part was looking back at his guide and seeing all the birds, trees, and flowers he had discovered.
So why are field guides important? As one student wisely put it: “To discover different plants and animals.” And maybe even more importantly, to help kids see the magic in places they’ve walked a hundred times before—and inspire them to care for the natural world they now know a little better.
“They looked at an area that they had seen before in a different way, which was fun to see,” Torey concluded.
With every page they created, these fourth graders became explorers of their own backyard, and that’s something to celebrate.
Need a Pocket Nature Guide? Get yours here.
