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The Best of Nature
The outdoors will provide the best lessons in nature study. Outdoor
experiences should take precedence over lectures between four walls, or
browsing through books. What can be learned in the outdoors
should be learned there. The printed page about the outdoor world
is a poor substitute for contact with nature.
After sessions in the outdoors with the physical and biological world,
there may be turning to books to gain broader understanding. Some will
say that text-book study is better than nothing, but why settle for
mediocrity of experience?
We learned long ago that the best way to learn about an area is to take
careful observation of everything in sight. This is best done while going
very slowly, and even by standing still for awhile as one tries to
understand not just some details, but the whole inter-related natural scene.
There is a difference between a nature walk, a nature hike, or just the
overall hike. It is only in the movement best described as the "creep" that
one attunes best to nature. The hiker has a different goal. There is a goal
ahead, and a time to reach it. A camera moved about rapidly as one snaps
a shutter yields blurred pictures. So a hiker at best gets only a vague
impression of the area he rushes by. He does not have time to appreciate
the many offerings of nature that he hurries to pass by.
A nature hike of a mile or more is a travesty. It is an insult to the term
"nature", for there is too much time spent hiking, and too little on
becoming aware of what is underfoot. To get acquainted with an area is to
walk over it. The slower the walk, the better. Thus we have the nature
"creep", a movement at a snail's pace, often punctuated by standing still,
looking, listening, smelling, and conjecturing.
The distance traveled is far less inportant than the amount seen,
appreciated, interpreted, and really felt through the senses. Thus a patch
cut out from a leaf may designate where some denizen of the outdoors
feasted, or even perhaps a hailstone cut its mark. A mound of dirt felt
underfoot in a lawn may reveal where an earthworm had been busy.
Good companions on such "creeps" can offer challenges to interpretation,
add eyes to help discoveries, and lend ears to catch sounds of the natural
world.
Someone has described a naturalist as one who calls attention to things we
have seen all our lives, but never noticed. The primary objective of
interpretation is to create a sensual and personal awareness! To be
aware, one should develop a personal identity with the environment. To develop
such awareness, there must be some knowledge of the environment, for it is
here that awareness begins. Definitions, facts, mere knowledge -- these do
not necessarily create awareness. We must have a feeling for the environment.
We must have involvement with the environment. Tasting, smelling, feeling,
seeing, hearing, wondering -- these are the avenues for involvement.
-- by Stanley B. Mulaik
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