Hike This Science Hunt!

What You Do:

1. Choose a hike. Haven’t laced up those boots in awhile? No worries! There’s a lot of information available for beginning hikers, both online, and through the national or state park service. Try clicking on www.stateparks.com to find parks in your area. Or even better, call your local parks and recreation department for suggestions.
2. Create the Adventure Pack. Once you've chosen a destination, go online to do some research about the flora and fauna you’ll find there. Find pictures of some particularly interesting things—objects with funny names like “Sticky Monkey Flower” or unusual qualities, like cool fungus or colorful bark.  Print the pictures on a piece of paper and cut them out. On a piece of card stock, print descriptions of the objects and any interesting facts, for example, “Madrone trees have orange-red bark that peels back to show silvery-green bark underneath. Raccoons, robins, quail, and deer like to eat the berries of the tree. Madrone trees need forest fires to survive. The fires clear away overhanging leaves and branches, which gives the tree the light it needs to thrive.” Cut your work into clue cards: on one side of the card stock you should have your description, with a little space left over for a location hint. On the other side of the card, you should attach the picture of the object and write its name. For a homemade look, just glue the pictures on and write the names below. If you want your cards to look like “professional scientist clues”, you can take them to a copy shop and make colored two-sided copies on card stock, then use a paper cutter to cut them neatly.
3. Take your hike for a kid-free test drive. Look for each of the items you’ve identified via Web, and write down clues to help your child find them, using directional words like near/far, left/right, or behind/in front. (If a dry run is impossible, you can always send an adult up the trail for a pre-hike while the kids are having a snack and making final preparations below.) Hints might include something like, “You will see a Madrone tree on your left near the top of the hill” or “Look behind the biggest tree in the field to find the fungus.”
4. Sell the story. This nature hunt has all the making of a great adventure, but it needs an enthusiastic storyteller to make it sing. Set the stage, by putting all your clues into a small bag (“an adventure pack”), with a few zip lock bags for your young explorer to collect rock and stick samples. Tuck in a crayon in case she wants to draw any pictures of what she sees along the way. And then be sure to hype the hike, by telling her she’s going on a science adventure, and challenging her to hunt down all the clues in her pack. Happy trails!