Nature Journaling
Nature journaling in CalNat courses takes a variety of forms, including data collection and documentation, field notes and descriptions of activities completed, and sketches of urban flora and fauna, as well as narratives of observation activities and experiences. Previously in Wild Davis, nature journals were used by students for taking notes on lecture content, documenting their contribution to the group field projects (including data collection), and narrating and sketching their experiences at their sit spots.
Sit spots are a commonly-used instructional tool in CalNat courses, and involve making observations at the same location throughout the course. In Wild Davis, students visit their sit spot three times throughout the quarter, once around dawn, once at mid-day, and once around dusk, for 45 minutes each. Even prior to shelter-in-place directives, sit spots were intended to be a solitary experience for the students, excluding friends, family, and electronic devices. Students practice focusing on each sense individually (with the exception of taste) to ‘get to know’ their location, and document their experience in words, sound recordings, sketches, and a limited number of photos (to reduce device use). Prior to remote instruction, students were encouraged to choose sit spots in an urban green space, garden, or park. Since the sit spot observations occur at times of day when students may not be comfortable being alone outdoors, any space in which the student felt safe was allowed (including backyards). After each observation, students turned in their nature journals for review by the instructor.
Under remote instruction, students were even more explicitly encouraged to choose a sit spot in which the student felt safe, and in which prolonged sitting was allowed. Under shelter-in-place directives, many city parks required visitors to be exercising and not ‘loitering’ which limited the options for students in 2020. Consequently, several students selected sit spots in their backyard (n=9/23), though many still chose a neighborhood park or greenspace (n=14/23). Unlike previous quarters, students were also allowed to change the location of their sit spot if the student’s access to or comfort with the location changed. Students completed their observations in their nature journals and then ‘turned in’ their journal entries via scans/photographs or typed transcripts of the journal pages uploaded to the course LMS.
Under traditional instruction, sit spots are reserved for solo nature journaling and observation activities; however, under remote instruction, students often used their sit spot to complete other field activities (described in the Participatory Science Projects section). This provided an avenue for place-based learning, or learning about “local natural, built, and social environments through inquiry, environmental action, and other hands-on activities in a specific place” (Kudryavstev et al 2012, p. 240). In addition to fostering pro-environmental behavior, place-based education can foster academic achievement, positive social-emotional outcomes, and greater appreciation of the natural world (Sobel, 2005). Participation in direct instruction through synchronous lectures, in combination with engagement in multiple forms of experiential activity such as nature journaling, observation activities, and completion of field activities, represents a rigorous and effective strategy to strengthen students’ sense of place (Kudryavstev et al 2012).