Explore Outdoors ~ Treetop Fungi

 During an early spring storm, a couple of small branches blew down from the oaks lining the driveway. I always enjoy looking at what's growing on them - usually a fun selection of lichens and other fungi that are too high to see. They resemble the sorts of things one might find clinging to driftwood at the ocean's edge. Sometimes the treetop fungi look just as surprised to see me as I am to see them.

Next time the wind blows down branches from a tree, check out what's growing on them!

Explore Outdoors ~ Patterns in Nature

Today is a great day for patterns! Over at the GROG blog, Christy Mihaly is chatting with Lisa Perron about her new book, Patterns Everywhere. Meanwhile over here, we're going on a Pattern Walk!

One of the patterns people find frequently in nature is a spiral. Ammonites (extinct marine mollusks) had a coiled external shell. Perhaps you know some other mollusks with coiled shells? You can find spirals hidden in many plants: in the uncurling fern leaves, head of a sunflower, and curling dried leaves of grass.

This week, head out on a Pattern Walk. In addition to spirals, you might find lines and stripes...

 

 

or spots and dots. 

 

Saturday Online Science & Nature Program

 

 This Saturday, January 9 the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History is hosting a Science & Nature program for families. The 45-minute long program begins at 11 am Eastern time.

Join museum educators as they share science skill-building activities and ways to explore the natural world as well as collections.

Author-illustrator Susan Stockdale joins the program to read her book, Stripes of All Types. She will talk about how studying natural history informs her books and share the process she uses to develop her books. Then kids of all ages will have a chance to create their own artwork to share what they know about their favorite animal.

Find out more and sign up at the Smithsonian website 

Check out my interview with Susan Stockdale over at Sally's Bookshelf. And if you get a chance, grab a copy of the book to read because it's really, really fun.

Find out more about Susan Stockdale at her website

See you Saturday at the museum!

Books that celebrate Patterns in Nature

theme: patterns, nature, observation

Spot, Spike, Spiral (Board book)
by Sarah Grace Tuttle; illus. by Miriam Nerlove
28 pages; ages 2-4
Creative Editions, 2019 

Spot. Spike. Spiral.

This book introduces nine spotted, spiked, or spiraled creatures. The text is simple, the art vibrant and richly detailed. Pages invite you to linger and study the colors and patterns of the blue poison dart frog, the wattle cup caterpillar, the rainbow millipede.

What I like about this book: I love the vibrant watercolor illustrations. I love the way Miriam Nerlove captures texture and movement. And I like the simplicity of the text. Spot. Spike. Spiral. What I really like, though, is the last spread that shows each of the animals featured in the book.

This is a wonderful companion to their earlier book, Dot, Stripe, Squiggle, published last August. That book introduced young observers to nine sea creatures, from red-spotted blennies to zebra lionfish and sea nettles. What both books do well is to shine a light on the simple shapes and patterns that children can see in their environment. Even if they don’t remember the names of the beetles, mollusks, or fish, children will recognize spots and squiggles, spikes and spirals.

Flow, Spin, Grow: Looking for Patterns in Nature
by Patchen Barss; illus. by Todd Stewart
32 pages; ages 4 - 8
Owlkids, 2018

Look, climb, dig, flow. Breathe in deep, around you go. 
Twirl, whirl, swirl, grow….

A poetic line? Or suggestions for exploration? Each spread takes a word and expands on it. Look – for patterns. Climb – a tree. And as you do, notice how the limbs and branches split. Nature is in motion, spinning, twirling around the sun, and those whirls and swirls are echoed in the spirals we find in pine cones, sea shells, plant tendrils.

What I like about this book: It invites you to move, to observe, to participate in the world around us. The text connects and compares: winding streams to the spreading branches of a tree to the branches of the bronchi and bronchioles that carry air into our lungs.

Back matter compares patterns of a giraffe’s coat to tree bark to cracked mud. “Be watchful,” writes author Patchen Barrs. “Ask questions. Make connections.”

Beyond the Book

Go on a nature walk to find patterns in nature. This blog post has ideas of things to look for.

Have a scavenger hunt. How many of these patterns can you find?

• star shapes
• coils
• round things
• spirals
• branching
• cracking
• stripes
• spots
• spikes
• squiggles
• zig-zags

Look for spikes and patterns on caterpillars and butterflies. Use this guide to help you.

Today we're joining other book bloggers over at STEM Friday, where you can discover other cool STEM books. And we're joining Perfect Picture Book Friday, an event where bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's website . Review copies provided by publishers.

Wednesday Explorers Club ~ Aging Flowers

A field of flowery color is lovely to see ... but what happens to flowers as they grow older? Spend some time watching a few individual flowers. Capture them by painting their portraits or taking photos.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Mysterious Patterns: Finding Fractals in Nature

Mysterious Patterns: Finding Fractals in Nature

By Sarah C. Campbell; photos by Sarah and Richard Campbell

32 pages; ages 7 - 10

Boyds Mills Press, 2014

themes: math, nature

 

If you’ve never heard of a fractal, then this is the book for you. Sarah Campbell begins by looking at simple shapes around us:  cones, cylinders, spheres, rectangles. Then she moves on to things in nature that don’t have perfect shapes.

“Instead of being straight, smooth, and flat, many natural shapes are rough, bristly, and bumpy,” she writes. True enough when you’re looking at a head of broccoli, a fern, or even a tree.

Before 1975 no one really had a name for these shapes. Then, a mathematician named Mandelbrot noticed something interesting: these shapes had repeating patterns. For example,. A tree starts with a stem that divides into branches, which each divide into branches, until the very last and smallest split into twigs. He called these patterns “fractals”.

In her book, Campbell provides photos of different kinds of fractals. Then she provides a DYI “make your own fractal” activity and ends with a biographical sketch of Mandelbrot.

What I Like: The explanations are straight-forward and the photos really help illustrate her points.

Beyond the book: Are snowflakes fractals? After the Nor’easter this week, I’ve got snowflakes on my mind. And on my boots and the porch and the roof of the garage. But, although they have patterns, the snowflakes falling out of the sky aren't necessarily fractals.

Make your own snowflakes - all you need is paper and scissors. And these hints.

Go on a Fractal Hike. If you're wondering what sort of fractals you might find in nature, check out this video. Remember to take your sketchbook and some pencils so you can draw any fractals you dome across.

Make a Koch Snowflake Fractal - start with an equilateral triangle. Then add equilateral triangles on the sides - and keep adding more. Like this.

  Today is STEM Friday - head over to the STEM Friday blog to see what other bloggers are reviewing. Review copy provided by publisher.

The Shape of a Tree

When the last leaf has blown away and the trees are left bare - that's when you can see the true shape of a tree. Each kind of tree has its own shape and pattern of branching. Some have branches that alternate up the trunk, like oaks. Others have branches that come off the trunk in pairs - "opposite" branches. That's what maples do. Some trees have weepy droopy branches, like the willows. And others, like Staghorn sumac, are tipped with fruit clusters that the birds love to eat in the winter.

The shape of the tree is its "skeleton", with the trunk and branches making up its bones. Some of those bones are white, some are dark. Some are smooth, some rough.

Grab your sketchbook or journal and go on a tree skeleton hike. Draw the structures of your neighborhood trees - and maybe do a rubbing of the bark. It's a good way to get to know the trees without their leaves on.

Today is STEM Friday - head over to the STEM Friday blog to see what other people are talking about in science, technology, engineering and math.

Snake Skin ... Patterns

Snakes are hunters - but they have natural enemies, too. Birds, raccoons, foxes and coyotes see snakes as tasty fast food. Sometimes the patterns on a snake's skin look vivid to us, but in their natural habitat those rings and blotches blend into the background. Designs can help break up the snake's outline.

Test it: Cut out a dozen snake shapes from cardboard. Then, using a field guide, color your snakes to match some of the patterns of snakes in nature.

Now head out to do some field research. Take your cardboard snakes to a wooded area and scatter them around. Challenge your friends to find the snakes - and write down (on the back of the snakes) which order they were found (first, second....). Then go to a different habitat, like a grassy area or a rocky area. Scatter your snakes around and see which ones are found first.


Do some patterns work better than others? Why?
Check out other things happening over at STEM Friday.

Wordless Wednesday

Counting on Fibonacci

shadbush

Last week I reviewed Swirl by Swirl, a book about spirals in nature. Continuing on the theme of math patterns in nature ... a long time ago mathematicians noticed that certain numbers show up in nature over and over again. Lilies have three petals. Shadbush and wild roses have five.

The math guys got excited because these numbers belong to a special series called the Fibonacci sequence, and they found them everywhere they looked. Starfish? Five arms. An octopus? Eight. Daisies? Thirteen petals or, in some cases, 21.

The Fibonacci sequence begins like this: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 …. And there is definitely a pattern.* If you look around, you can find Fibonacci numbers. Cut open a cucumber or tomato and you find three seed cavities. Slice a pear cross-wise and you get that five-armed star shape – each of those arms is where seeds develop. Red pines have pairs of needles while white pines have clusters of five.

Of course, not everything grows in a Fibonacci pattern; mustards have four petals and star flowers have seven.

*(hint: 1 + 1 = 2; 1 + 2 = 3; 2 + 3 = ?)

STEM Friday - Swirl by Swirl

Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature

By Joyce Sidman; illustrations by Beth Krommes

40 pages, ages 4-8

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2011

 “A spiral is a snuggling shape,” writes Joyce Sidman. “It fits neatly in small places.” With that cozy beginning, Sidman and illustrator Beth Krommes launch us into a closer inspection of spirals in the natural world.

Spirals start out small and get bigger “swirl by swirl”. Sidman’s lyrical prose helps us understand how spirals are strong, protective, expansive. Krommes’ scratchboard illustrations capture the details: a tail twining around a twig; the way a chipmunk curls up to sleep overwinter.

From snail shells to galaxies, from the curl of an ocean wave to the twist of wild wind, spirals are everywhere. Sidman includes a couple pages at the end that explain more about the plants and animals featured in the book and shows how nature and numbers combine in spirally patterns.

I asked Sidman why spirals?

“I’ve always been interested in them,” she said, “why they appear and why we find them beautiful.” The trick, though, was to find a way to write about them….  “I wanted this to be more than a book about shapes. I wanted to understand why spirals work well in nature, in so many circumstances.”

So Sidman read and read and read. She also collected lots of photos and did a lot of thinking. Then, once she grasped the reasons for why spirals occur in nature she began organizing her book.

Even though Krommes was doing her own research for the illustrations, Sidman sent photos. The two sent ideas back and forth and the book grew in a collaborative fashion. “It was a lively, challenging, and unusual way to create a picture book,” Sidman said. “Usually the editor is the only link between author and illustrator; I loved being part of the whole process!”

You can’t help but learn something new when you work on a book. Sidman learned a lot about Fibonacci numbers, she said – but don’t ask her to explain them. The neatest thing she learned? “That butterfly tongues form spirals but frog tongues don’t!” 

This is part of the STEM Friday book round-up, hosted at Simply Science. Review copy provided by the publisher.

Go on a Pattern Hike

If you’re looking for a way to connect math to nature, start paying attention to patterns. Patterns are lines or shapes that repeat – and you can find them just about everywhere you look: the back of a caterpillar, butterfly wings, the way a wasp’s nest is built or the honeycomb of a bee hive.

There are patterns in the way clouds gather in the sky, and the V’s geese make as they fly.

There are patterns left by waves on the beach, and by snakes on the desert sand. Look closely at a cactus and you’ll find a pattern in how the spines come out; same thing for pine needles.

There are patterns in rocks and trees – and even in the food you eat. Ever cut an apple across the middle and see the star inside? Take a closer look at blueberries and you’ll see that same star pattern at the blossom end of the fruit.

So, next time you head outside go on a “pattern hunt”. Take along a journal or camera and record the neat patterns you find.

What to share the patterns you find? Just send a low-resolution photo to sueheaven at gmail dot com and I’ll post them here (it might take a couple days).