Identifying wild edibles is a fun skill to learn with your family. Learning about wild edible plants opens up new possibilities for learning and lifestyle. Once you’ve begun recognizing local edible plants, your nature walks will be filled with discovery. Once you’ve identified an edible plant such as dandelion greens, fiddleheads, violets, lamb’s quarters, and garlic mustard, you can try cleaning and eating them and possibly even incorporating them into cooking! Learning how to identify edible plants around you will add another layer of fun, understanding, and discovery to your nature walks. Challenge all family members to learn, too, by playing a game to see who can spot edible plants first.

Once respected worldwide for its nutritional value and medicinal properties, today, the common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) is seen by many as a noxious weed. Why? We have the rise of “lawn culture” to thank, whose origin stems back to 17th century England where lawns were a wealth status. Before this landscaping trend took root in the U.S., we might have seen dandelion varieties in seed catalogs and homegrown samples entered in the county fair during the 1800s. But here we are 200 years later, and this delightful and tenacious little flower has been hexed by many as undesirable. And to add insult to injury, the cost of herbicides spent each year to kill this gift from nature is in the millions, impacting far more than just the dandelion. Learning about history through the lens of the common dandelion can help us understand how our culture has gone from loving to hating (and hopefully back to loving) this flowering herbaceous perennial plant. This approach to history might tap into established or budding interests in nutrition, medicine, culinary arts, agriculture, social studies, ecology, and even mythology.

What’s the best way we can care for the places we live while sustaining 10,000 generations to come? The answer may lie within the structures and behaviors of the natural world and understanding the limits and opportunities found in our places. “Biomimicry, the practice of looking deeply into nature for solutions to engineering, design, and other challenges, has inspired a film about a ground-breaking vision for creating a long-term, sustainable world.” This short film, “Biomimicry,” featuring Janine Benyus, looks at how some of our most pressing human-made problems may be solved by mimicking nature. Benyus delivers natural and human examples, offering hope and encouragement for 10,000 generations when we accept her invitation to “apprentice” with “masters” in the natural world.

The beauty of New England living is that each season offers a new way to learn and engage in our communities. Locally grown and produced food is a community-based resource that can help us understand how to connect to the seasons through local agriculture. Farmers’ markets bring farmers and neighbors together in placemaking events on town commons, plazas, and street corners. Each week, seasonal produce holds center stage while skills are shared, and intergenerational engagement occurs. Sharing knowledge and skills is a type of collaborative consumption that connects neighbors and expands our sense of place and connections with people of all ages. Read more in our posts, Learning Ahead: Farmers’ Markets.

Plant sales & swaps happen all over western Massachusetts this time of year. From big to small events, many raising funds for valuable community resources, plant sales are an excellent opportunity for sourcing your plants (and gardening knowledge) locally. They are terrific community events for learning tips on plants and gardening from home gardeners and experts in the field! Bring your family to a plant sale this spring and unearth the embedded learning they hold for the entire family! Read more in our post, Plant Sales & Swap Support Local Causes & Embedded Learning.

People often talk about “chemicals” in our food, water, or hygiene products in reference to possibly toxic or carcinogenic ingredients. Some chemicals certainly are dangerous to humans, but EVERYTHING is made up of chemicals! But what is the exact definition of a chemical, anyway? The Merriam-Webster definition of “chemical” reads, “A substance obtained by a chemical process or producing a chemical effect.” Chemistry is the study of how chemicals interact and react with one another. Cooking is often used as an example of an everyday activity that involves chemistry. When you apply heat to a piece of steak in a pan, water content leaves the muscle fibers. This is why the filet is smaller after it has been cooked. Think about some other interesting reactions which occur in the kitchen. Why does corn pop? Corn contains water, which turns to steam, creating pressure inside the hard outer shell and eventually exploding. Another way to ask this question would be, why don’t other grains pop? Learn more about these types of reactions and get curious in the kitchen!

A community-based educational resource available to everyone is the sun! To keep time using the sun, we sometimes check the sky to see its position – but this method isn’t very accurate. Shadows, on the other hand, can give a more precise reading of the time, but only if the right tools are used! Families can create their own sundials using simple materials found around the house, allowing shadows to become their new clock. Beginning at noon on a sunny day, this project requires monitoring on the hour, every hour during the daylight portion of a 24-hour-period. The results are a nature-based time-telling device that can spark explorations of geometry, the structure of time, and ancient history. Making your own sundial can also support the scientific understandings of the earth’s relationship with the sun, and when done with young children, the development and practice of language skills.