Its getting spooky up in the northern part of the state. The mornings are colder, sometimes frosty, and the days are short.

Kevin explains how to look for a bird in a field guide and why field guides are useful.

photo from www.bird-friends.com

Yet, the Black Phoebes keep on catching the highest perch on the playground, and the students continue to find them in the field guide.

With Bird School, students are encouraged to go out into the field, observe nature, record their observations, ask questions, and repeat the process. This is the same method used by former professor of natural history at UC Santa Cruz, Kenneth M. Norris. He called it "spinning the wheel." This practice has proven to be extremely transformative in the lives of budding naturalists and has helped to create some of the top naturalists, interpreters, scientists, and land managers in California.

Kenwood Elementary's 4th graders "spin the wheel."

This week we worked with some very bright 3rd and 4th grade students from Kenwood Elementary and The Meadow School. They asked many questions and learned how to answer their questions through observation. Ms. Cagle and Ms. Forester's classes at Kenwood even watched the power of their observations be put to work as we taught them how to record their sightings on ebird.com, an international database for bird observation run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. More on ebird soon!

We're looking forward to more schedules like the one below. Bay Area here we come!

The schedule for Mr. Wright's class.