Nature Study 1B Wasps

Following up on our first Handbook of Nature Study lesson, we learned a little bit about wasps this week. Wasps are related to bees, but are not hairy like bees are. Wasps are solitary or social- those are the ones that build those paper pulp nests, like the one we saw on the slide the other day. Only the females have stingers. Some live on nectar, but others are omnivores, and eat carrion along with their sweets. Some wasps are parasitic, and they lay their eggs inside caterpillars, then when the eggs hatch, they eat the caterpillar from the inside out. Totally awesome, apparently. We did all agree that using parasitic wasps for pest control was way cooler than using toxic pesticides. Though I guess we don't want close encounters with either form of insect control!

Nature Study 1A Cottonwood

Cottonwood Seeds. Photo from Land Arts in an Electronic Age.

We learned a little bit about Cottonwood Trees this week, after seeing a little farm COVERED in the fluffy cottony spiderwebby seeds, and seeing them at the Ahtanum Mission. Avery was interested to find out that Cottonwoods have light, flexible wood, often used to make those round cheese boxes, matches, paper, cheap plywood, snowboard cores, and perhaps most excitingly, the "bones" of Buster, the crash test dummy on the TV show Mythbusters! Apparently cottonwood breaks under the same pressure as human bones. Good to know, good to know. Another interesting thing about cottonwoods is that they can sprout roots from buried limbs and trunk (and vice versa) making them good at holding sand dunes, and one of the few trees able to survive a sand dune existence.

Also, cottonwoods are Poplar type trees, and like to grow in wet areas. Around here they are found down in the little valleys and canyons along stream banks.

Nature Study 1

We started our new Nature Study program today. We're using Anna Botsford Comstock's The Handbook of Nature Study, and the guidance and some of the ideas from The One Hour Challenges at this website, plus our regular nature science stories, like these, and these, as well as made up ones and Native American stories.
Avery's drawing of a Clover flower. It doesn't show up well in the picture, but in his book it is sweet. Diminutive, but isn't clover, really?

We had a picnic under this tree. What a great way to start a nature study outing!

One of the original old apple trees still growing and producing on the Mission grounds.

I think this is the seedpod of an American Sycamore tree. There are several at the Mission, providing beauty and shade to the park grounds.

Wasp nest under the slide ramp. The boys watched closely for some time.

Miles' nature book drawing. He finished pretty quickly then spent some time moving piles of dirt around and poking them with his apple wood stick.

My page. We were sitting directly under one of those ancient apple trees, so it seemed natural to draw that. Ummm... not that I'm a fabulous artist or anything, but it's fun to all sit and draw together. And we were using these cool Lyra Aquacolor crayons, which draw nicely like rich, soft crayons, then magically turn into a watercolor painting when you brush with water!

Our two topics for further study are wasps and cottonwoods. We'll spend a bit of time this week finding out about those things.