In November I went with Callie on a class field trip to the Surrey Nature Centre. It's land that was donated by a couple who was concerned about the urbanization of Surrey and is tucked away right in the middle of the city. I go by it every day on my way to work but I had no idea it was there. We started the day with a game that teaches about the urban food chain. Kids were either squirrels, raccoons or coyotes. Callie got to be a squirrel and it was her job to find food, water and shelter while not getting caught. Looks like she got caught by a Coyote here and had to give up one of her life cards.
The afternoon was all about habitats. Callie's group got to be the coyote this time. They learned what they ate, where they lived and what, if anything, ate them. There was also an interesting history lesson about the Surrey Nature Centre property, right back to when it was first logged, destined to be athletic fields and then eventually saved and turned into the nature centre.
After some classroom learning on her animals habitat we went outside to a clearing in the woods to build them. Not life size of course but to relative scale out of whatever they could find. Some of the kids got very creative with beaver dams and eagles nests. The coyote groups struggled a bit since the habitat was just everywhere in the woods. They put together a few standing branches as trees and made a little nest of leaves for the coyote to sleep. I noticed Callie spent much of her time directing the work and not quite as much time actually doing the work.
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