Growing up in Southern California, I was fortunate to live not far from the Pacific Ocean. I spent many summer days at various beaches, but my mother would also take us on day trips to witness the yearly migration of the California gray whales. Ocean excursions like these are just […]

“Dress warmly and wear something you don’t mind getting wet,” my dad said, one morning. He was taking us hunting for the wild asparagus. I had read a bit about asparagus and I had eaten asparagus, but hunting for asparagus was a new experience. The memory of hunting is one […]

Earlier this year, while attending a homeschool conference, I had a conversation with a mother about nature studies and nature journaling. She had decided that her students would do nature journals and had started off with a vengeance to see that goal accomplished. She admitted that she had taken her […]

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” (Benjamin Franklin) These wise words are as true today as they were more than two hundred years ago when Benjamin Franklin first made this statement. That Franklin was one of the foremost minds of his […]

By now I expect you have seen a video of someone putting Mentos candies into an open bottle of Diet Coke. Almost immediately, a plume of foam shoots out of the bottle and into the air. While watching a “Mentos fountain” is interesting, it is significantly more interesting to investigate […]