One of the many great things I love about living in the Midwest is experiencing all four seasons. Hands down, my favorite is fall. Right now, the trees are almost at peak color change. This year, there are a lot of bright red leaves, which causes me to gasp excitedly, startling my husband as he drives us down the road. It makes me laugh, but not him.
Fall: A Time for Nature Study
Fall is a spectacular time for a nature study. It’s our tradition to take a day off from schooling inside and take our kids to a local nature preserve to walk the trails. It’s a chance to remember and recognize that all the beauty we see comes from a powerful God and Creator.
Nature is defined as the phenomena of the physical work collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to human or human creations.
The Oxford English Dictionary
Crunching the dried leaves beneath our feet, we identify elements of God’s created physical work. We point out the various beautiful trees or surprising animals that suddenly pop their heads out or wander across our path. We can ask our children what they see and what strikes them as the most interesting or beautiful. Slowly, our children become excited to share something.
The Importance of Nature Studies
You might be thinking, I don’t have time to load everyone up in the car, drive somewhere, and take a walk. We’ve got waaaaay too many book lessons to get through!
I get it. The Mystery of Science Biology textbook and its study guide offer an excellent, regimented curriculum – and it’s quite a page-turner- but there’s nothing like getting out and “touching grass.” It brings your focus back to God and His glory.
A walk in nature relieves the stress and the monotony of indoor schooling for homeschoolers or your co-op students and provides some excellent exercise time. Nature studies get the wiggles out and calm everyone as they move outside and breathe fresh air.
Your nature study doesn’t have to be formal. Kids can stop and listen and write down the sounds they hear. Have your young children sketch something they see and tell you later why they chose that item to draw. Your older children can write a few paragraphs on what things in nature really stood out to them. Ask questions of your kids to stimulate conversations. Use simple games like “I Spy” or bring along our free printable Mystery of Science scavenger hunt (click below to get it now). This makes it fun, memorable, and less stressful for everyone.
Incorporating Science into Nature Studies
You can focus on specific science topics while walking in the woods or fields. Once, we had our children take a sample of pond water home and look at it under a microscope. My older children got to research the organisms they were seeing and write about them, while my younger children got to draw what they saw. If you don’t have access to a microscope, you can have them create a rock or leaf collection. Go to the library and check out some nature guides and use these to help them define the specimens they’ve collected. Bird watching is fun and with a little planning ahead, you can take a bird guide along with you. Make it as complex as a dichotomy tree or as simple as a leaf rubbing. As a homeschooling parent, it’s up to you.
Using Nature Studies to Teach about God
Studying (or even just observing) nature causes us to worship. My husband always points out Romans 1:25: “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served something created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen.”
I love the analogy of a pocket watch. When you think of the complexity of the gears and the beauty of a watch’s design, who would assume that it happened accidentally? Or that it created itself? That’d be silly! Why, then, would someone worship the creation instead of the One who created it?
As fall is slowly wrapping up, I encourage you to pause from your regular schooling and try to do a nature study. It will remind you and your children how magnificent God is. Show them that they can see God through His creation.
Bible Verses for Nature Study
Integrate science with your Bible study and highlight appropriate verses to illustrate God’s creativity. Here are a couple of our favorites:
“Ah, Lord GOD! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you”.- Jeremiah 32:17
“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”- Revelation 4:11
Nature and our science lessons should always remind us that not only were we created- but we were created in God’s image; therefore, we are loved and valued by the Creator of all!