ASPI's FB page is alive with images from the Toodle Langa camps - two with a focus on recycled art and one Zombie camp - held at the ASPI Rockcastle Wilderness Site.  Toodle Langa's founders, Christina and Darren, wanted to give kids a real camp experience, tents, composting toilets, outdoors!  It was lovely - even through the torrential downpours of two camps, food was cooked, friendships forged, art created.  ASPI is excited to work with Toodle Langa for some weekend camps and workshops - the two October camps are Wilderness Art and Zombie Survival (Just in time for Halloween)!  See the Toodle Langa Website for more information and registration.

The MASH camp from the Rockcastle County Hospital visited - 20 middle school students.  We hunted for arthropods, tested pH, and hiked!  The picture above is the campers on the footbridge of the Michael Zalla Trail.  Everyone who disparages the state known as "Middle School" should meet these kids.   

We hosted the Boy Scouts - who shored up and created part of our new Solar System Trail, working on their Trail Blazing badges.  A day care group stopped by for a hike and some bug-catching fun!

Besides the Toodle Langa camps, we have visitors from the National Challenge Academy and Notre Dame Service Learning programs scheduled for this fall - and our Harvest Festival.  The Harvest Festival is open to public and all participants of all of the ASPI programs.  There will be food, games, and fun - October 18, 2:00-4:00.

The Rockcastle Wilderness Homeschool  schedule will be published soon.

What other programs would you like to see at the Site?  Our new listings of school field trips is here.  Share with teachers you know!

We have published our summer schedule of activities at the Rockcastle River Demonstration Site! (About 6 miles south of Livingston, KY, 2 miles from I-75 exit 49).

ASPI is excited to host the inaugural event of the new Rockcastle Natural Wonder Series - a monthly program to enrich us with knowledge and the experiences of all of the nature of Rockcastle County.  The Kick-Off will include guided hikes of the Zalla Trail - focussing on the mesophytic cove forest, information from several conservancy programs, an interactive display about wild edibles, and ecology and family fun activities.  June 21st - from 10:00 - 2:00 - we'll have the Mary E. Fritsch Nature Center 
open, as well as the Cordwood House for tours.

Other activities this summer include:  
Reading in the Woods Series for young children (pre-school to early elementary)
Fairy Houses and Eleven Forts
Native Pollinators for home gardeners and backyard naturalists
Arthropods!

We are also hosting a volunteer day - Volunteers and Veggies - help us maintain the site - trails, buildings, grounds (wherever your talent lies), bring a sandwich and a water bottle, and we'll provide lots of veggie sides!

See Workshops, Classes, and More for the details of each program.

It was the day before solstice, so we explored day, night, the Moon, and the Sun during Afternoon Discoveries.   (Join us the third Friday of every month from 2:00 - 4:00 at the Mary E. Fritsch Nature Center.  Ages 5-11.)

Just for some evening fun, try some of these "experiments" - almost all of us learn better by doing - and if you are an adult without little ones around, I bet you'll have fun!  See if you know junior high astronomy!

Gather up a globe or ball to simulate a globe, a white balloon or ball smaller than your globe, and a lamp for a sun! 

I didn't include any "answers."  If you need some clarification, e-mail me at naturecenter@a-spi.org.

Here are some warm-ups:

1.  Use the lamp and Earth to demonstrate why the Sun rises in the East and sets in the  West.  (You can use a bit of masking tape to mark the eastern seaboard in the U.S. to help remind children of their directions.)

Got the globe spinning?  What direction?
2.  Keep your Earth rotating.  Look down at the North Pole.  What direction is it spinning?  Clockwise or counterclockwise?

3.  Keep the Earth rotating the same direction.  Look up at the South Pole.  What direction is it spinning?  Clockwise or counterclockwise?

So when we talk about the direction of planets, we have to use a reference point!

A little bit more complicated now. .  .

4.  Now, did you know the Earth is closer to the Sun in the Winter!  (We're going to be referencing Winter and Summer for the Northern Hemisphere.)  So, the seasons are not caused by the distance from the Sun.  Maybe you've heard about the tilt.  To help understand, hold your globe close to your Sun - level with in the same plane as the Sun.  Look at the angle of "rays" hitting the Northern Hemisphere.  Tilt the Northern Hemisphere away from the Sun.  Tilt it toward the Sun.  

So, does the Earth rock back and forth?

Hopefully, you can walk around your Sun.  If not, designate an object you an walk around as the Sun. (It doesn't need to be a light for this.)

5.  Hold the Earth at a "winter" angle - so the Northern Hemisphere is tilted back from the Sun.  Note where in the room the North Pole is aimed.  Keeping the North Pole aimed there - not changing the tilt of the Earth - walk half way around the Sun.  How is the Earth now oriented with respect to the Sun?  How long does it take the Earth to revolve around the Sun?   Can you revolve your Earth around your Sun and note what season it would be in each quadrant?

Stick with it; this next part is cool!

6.  Now, get rid of your globe.  Your head is now the Earth!  Let the Sun shine on it!  Use your Moon and find where the Moon would have to be for the folks on Earth to see a full moon and a new moon.  Where would the Moon need to be to see a quarter moon?  Crescent?  Gibbous?  

Look up a moon phase chart if you need it - you can also record the moon phase each night.

7.  Go through the phases of the moon around your head.  (Wax on, wax off.  You start with your right hand, correct?  If the lit part of the moon is on the right, it is waxing - getting bigger.  The waning moon is lit on the left.)
How long does it take the Moon to orbit the Earth?
Which direction is it orbiting?  Remember to use a reference point!

Challenges!

8.  We only see one side of the Moon.  Put a sticker or mark on one side of your Moon. Taking it through all the phases around the Earth (your head), keep the mark facing the Earth.  Does the Moon rotate on its axis?  How often?  What direction?  (Remember to use a reference point!)

9.  The Moon rises about an hour later each night.  Why?

10. What arrangement of the Earth, Moon, and Sun causes a solar eclipse?

11.  What arrangement of the Earth, Moon, and Sun causes a lunar eclipse?

Look up a schedule of eclipses.

12.  Can you explain the schedule with your model?  (Scientific theories are often called models.  Remember theories are the best explanation of a phenomenon.  They are not "little laws" - laws are the mathematical relationships of the universe.)

Have fun!  
tisha

Every time I go to the Mary E. Fritsch Nature Center I have four more things to do than I can possibly get done.  That problem stems from two good phenomena - we are planning new, exciting programs for the community and schools, and our facilities are in the forest where leaves fall, trails erode, plants grow, and spiders will continue to build webs to catch food.

I try, however, to always take a few minutes to be still and listen.  Over the past few weeks, the birds are strikingly different.  The commuters have all headed south and the aves that will over-winter are settling in for shorter, colder days.  The numbers are down, the volume is down, but the messages are much clearer.  Each chirp and whistle is much more distinct without all the competition.  The cooler, drier air delivers a crisper sound, too.

The leaves no longer whisper above me.  They rustle and crunch - and mostly on the ground, except for those oak leaves which refuse to let go until a new bud pushes them to complete the nutrient cycles decaying on the forest floor.

This week, the forest was very quiet compared to the wet spring (and summer this year) that brought out the riotous amphibians and insects.  It occurred to me that another sound this fall rivaled those loud creatures - children.  Small, medium, large, and I'll even be brazen enough to call the visitors from the Rockcastle Adult Day Center children.  Who isn't a child when you picnic in the woods and sing songs around the campfire?  And it did not matter the age of the boy who visited - four, ten, thirty-four, or seventy-four, they could not keep their hands off the irresistibly long, whippy bamboo.  The diversity in ages also kept us on our toes with logistics.  As our director said, "Eighty high school students take up a lot more space than 80 second graders."  Eighty high school students can also do a lot of trail work and eat a lot of marshmallows!

This fall the sounds of children trying so hard to be quiet and listen for the calls and scamperings of animals, the sounds of children hunting for seeds, the sounds of children emptying arthropod pitfall traps and discovering BUGS!, the sounds children roasting marshmallows, the sounds of children clearing and planting a garden surrounded the nature center.  

Outdoors we learn so much from listening - we learn about bird territories, squirrel habits, depth of rushing water.  We gain an inner calm.  It was beautiful to listen to children learning.  While we want to share the skills and calmness of listening - and we will continue to do so, I do love to hear the laughter coming through the trees.