Observing Nature…Grammatically!
For students to fully understand why we need to preserve the natural environment, they need to become familiar with nature. Taking the time to observe the way a scientist does by noticing details, taking measurements, keeping records, making predictions, observing whether the predictions come true, and continuing the cycle of observation can create ideal scenarios for focusing on grammatical points at each stage. Let’s get started!
Location: Find a natural spot close to the school that is easily accessible. It could be a park, a garden, a vacant lot, woods, the shoreline of a lake, river or pond—whatever the school’s environment has to offer. If there really isn’t any appropriate nearby space, students could do their observation outside of class, document their observations according to the assigned guidelines and then bring these in for regular class discussion. The important point is to have regular visits to the same spot—once a week, once a fortnight or once a month.
Materials: Students should dress appropriately (bring coats to class if necessary). They should have a notebook and colored pencils or crayons or a camera/cellphone, a magnifying glass (if possible), and all of their senses. Each student should choose a spot to sit and return to the same spot for every observation.
Rules should be set ahead of time: no running or rough play, any trash that shouldn’t be there should be picked up and thrown away in the proper place, all natural items should be left untouched.
A. The Present Tense (pre-visit) In the classroom, before the first visit, have students brainstorm at least 10 plants or animals that they think they will see (grass, trees, flowers, birds, bees, ants, weeds, squirrels, worms, etc.) For each one listed, have students connect a verb with it to describe what the organism does every day (trees grow, trees bring water up from the roots). Be sure that some sentences use a singular or collective noun: (grass produces chlorophyll, a bee pollinates flowers).
B. The Present Continuous (Progressive). When students go out for the first time, have them see if they can locate the items the plants and animals they wrote down. Are the organisms doing what they normally do? Have students record whether they can observe the plant or organism doing the activity they wrote down in A. (A bee is flying into a flower, so it is pollinating the flower. I think the tree is growing because it isn’t dead. )
Next, have the students sit on the ground, close their eyes and use their ears and nose to observe what is around them. Point out that when we use our senses, we don’t use the progressive form of the verb: I hear a bee buzzing (NOT I am hearing a bee buzzing.) I smell something sweet. Have them record everything they hear and smell, and then answer the question, “How is the weather?” with “It feels…” It feels hot.
C. Adjectives and Adverbs. Students should go to their spot. Sit quietly and observe. This time they should find at least five plants and take or draw pictures and take measurements. It doesn’t matter whether or not they know the name of the plant, but they need to use descriptive adjectives for each one and identify it with a letter and number 1 to show this is the first observation (A1 is a tall thin plant that is 10 cm high and 0.5 cm wide. It is all green, except for some yellow spots. )
D. Comparative Forms. On the next visit, they should try to find the same five plants and take measurements again as well as draw or take pictures. By referring to the last entries, they can use comparative or equative forms to record changes. (A2 is 2cm taller than it was last week. It is still as green as it was before, but it has more yellow spots now.)
E. Past Continuous (Progressive) and Adverbs. (in class) Look back to visit B to review what the plants and animals were doing at that time and write a paragraph or set of sentences to describe those actions: When we went to the field on September 27, a bee was flying into a flower very busily while the tree was silently growing. Emphasize that all of the things that were happening were happening at the same time and not in succession.
F. Simple Past. This time, when the students go to their spot, they should try to observe an insect, animal or bird and record the sequence of the animal’s actions. First an ant crawled along a branch on the ground and then it picked up a tiny piece of the wood and carried it in its mouth along the branch and through the grass. Another ant appeared on the same piece of wood… There should be at least 5 verbs to describe the animal (insect)’s movement. Emphasize that we use the simple past tense to retell a sequence of events when one thing happened after another. Again, students should take or draw pictures to illustrate the range of activities.
G. Present Perfect. Students will observe changes again, but this time they will express the changes by what has happened since the last visit. They can look at the plants they described in C and D or the animals (insects) observed in F and record how the situation has changed. The weather has become cooler. The tall thin plant A3 hasn’t grown any more since Oct. 1. All of the ants have left but a big beetle has taken their place.
H. Past Perfect. What had happened before the students arrived today and what were the results? Someone had put a small stone next to A3, so it was difficult to know whether A3 grew any more this week.
I. Probable Future. Have students go to their spot and look around them to observe what is new. They should record any changes they found. Now they will also write about what they expect will happen before the next visit. I think that the grass will turn brown before the next visit in two weeks.
J. Conditional Statements. What would happen if you changed something? Have students make some predictions about what they think would happen if they made some changes in the environment immediately around them. If it rained, the buds on the flowers would fall off.
Continue in this way, having students observe something in nature and then come back to it over and over again, observing and recording changes while gaining practice and confidence using various grammatical structures.
The Un-Natural Nature Walk
The goal of this activity is to have students improve their skills of observation so that they can observe more like a scientist than just someone passing by. Improving observation also encourages curiosity, develops skills at understanding and explaining the world around them and questioning what is normal and what is not.
For this activity place about 20 man-made (not from the natural world) objects on an outdoor trail or park area before you meet with the students. As the students walk along the trail, have them make observations, and at the end ask them how many objects they found and what they were. Discuss with them ways that they might improve their observation skills. Now, tell them how many objects there are then challenge them to find all of them, recording where each one is located as they find it.
As a follow-up to this activity, ask students to look for things that don’t belong as they come to school every day. Is there litter? Where did it come from? Why? What else did they see that didn’t belong? Are the out-of-place items a problem? How? What can be done to fix the problem?
[This activity was adapted from: Walz, Shannon. The Art of Observation. Green Teacher. Summer 2014. Issue 103, p. 26-28]