Step into the great outdoors and develop young scientists' skills of observation with a nature journaling lesson. Given a specific focus or goal, children practice making and recording observations of nature through written descriptions and detailed sketches. Once students become comfortable with this activity, it can be repeated as a supplement to elementary science units on just about any topic.

Concepts

making observations, science journals

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Additional Tags

observation, science journal, scientific observation, nature journal, science

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Pros

• A list of tips are provided for adapting the lesson to meet the needs of all children
• Includes an activity that extends learning about descriptive writing
• Provides a suggestion for a related service learning project
• A rubric is included for for assessing nature journals

Cons

• Additional scaffolding may be necessary to support all children with recording their observations of nature

Common Core

W.2.2 W.3.2.a W.4.2.a W.5.2.a