Family Nature Clubs in Action

Has your Family Nature Club just had a fantastic day out in nature? If so, please send your pictures and stories to info@natureplaywa.org.au so your ideas and experiences can provide inspiration to other clubs.

Our Communal Nature Box

By Steve Page, Young Naturalists Family Nature Club, May 2012

I took on the role of organising the Young Naturalists in December 2011 after enjoying taking my then 8 year old son to their events. The group is the children’s branch of WA’s oldest nature conservation organisations, the Western Australian Naturalist’ Club, and since taking on my role I’ve bumped into former members who joined as children 30 years ago and more!

Our group meet monthly whatever the weather, to explore nature with an expert. This year we’re planning to learn about birds, insects, geology, fungi, bushland restoration, and lots more. But our meetings are fun as well as educational. Typically, we have a bushwalk and a talk from someone very knowledgeable in our chosen topic, and this is generally followed by children doing their own exploring: some look for their own examples of our topic species, others run wild and enjoy the company other kids that share their passion for nature.

Our most recent outing was a visit to the Western Australian Reptile Centre where we met fellow W.A. Naturalists’ Club member and herpetologist Gane Doyle. Our afternoon began with a discussion about the fear of snakes in the bush. Of course, snakes are experts at avoiding humans, and even those we do encounter are far more likely to make a hasty retreat than to attack. While the 30 children who came along listened in awe, their parents were relieved to hear about how rare snake bites actual are and of the simple steps we can take if anyone were to get a bite.

After our talk we moved on excitedly to meet skinks, lizards and some very impressive snakes. Everyone got to hold at least one python, and we all learned lots about the life of our local reptiles. And after the excitement, the children were released into the wild to enjoy themselves in their natural habitat!

Anyone interested in joining us on future events will be very welcome and most of our events are free. Details are available on our website: www.wanaturalists.org.au. We’d love to hear from teenagers who might be interested in forming a “Junior Naturalists” group for more in-depth study of nature.

Steve Page
youngnats@wanaturalists.org.au

 

by Julia Dekenah, Hillarys Family Nature Club

After attending the talk by Richard Louv and the launch of Nature Play WA I decided to form a nature play group in our local area of Hillarys. I drew up a weekly schedule for Term Two 2010, and we started our actual plays in week three.

I invited three other families who also attended the talk and we all meet each Tuesday. In total there are four adults and 10 children between the ages of three and eight who explore together.

We take along a communal nature box into which children pop their special little nature findings – on our first hike (up the hill behind Whitford Nodes) we collected 11 tiny samples of flora! We all got to enjoy the smells emanating from the box and looking at the vastly different leaves.

At the end of each Nature Play a child from the group is selected to take charge of the box for the following week and encouraged to enjoy the findings for themselves and with their family.

The box has since become a hot issue – everyone wants to take it home! The next step will have to be individual boxes for each child and a communal box. That way we have items to talk about together and little bits to each take home. We also take a rubbish bag along and clean up any rubbish we find lying around.

Here is an outline of our first six weeks, we are currently in week five of our Nature Play Hillarys schedule.

Week 1: Mawson Park. Search for a piece of stick that would be a suitable size for walking with – our very own hiking stick. Once everyone has selected their special walking stick, they can have a play in the park together after they have each found three interesting things (leaves, feathers, honky nuts), OR collect three bits of rubbish to throw away. We can chat to them about our weekly adventures to get them in the spirit.

Week 2: Hike 1 – the hill behind Whitford Nodes play park (website says a hill is good – views, look-out etc). Using our walking sticks we can set out, asking them what they imagine the view at the top to be like, how far do they think we'll be able to see, what will we find at the top (what vegetation, soil, animals). At the top we can have afternoon tea and then a short play in the park at the bottom before home time.

Week 3: Whitford Nodes Beach. Collect interesting things, look at the seagulls and play in the sand (clean rubbish should we find any).

Week 4: Hike 2 – Iluka Foreshore Walk Trail. Park cars on Western end of Shenton Avenue and walk north. You can walk as far as Burn's Beach cafe but then the whole walk would take 1 hour 30 minutes, maybe too much for the younger ones? So thought we could walk as far as we feel like and then turn back.

Week 5: Lake Joondalup Nature Trail. Start in Neil Hawkins Park then head off. The whole trail around the lake takes two hours so, again, I thought we could choose how far to go.

Week 6: Star Swamp Bushland Reserve, entrance off Groat Street (via Marmion and North Beach roads).

I have included some photographs of our Hillarys Nature Play in action. Thanks for launching Nature Play WA, I'm so pleased to have been encouraged to make our outdoor experiences more frequent and focused.