Even as we are sheltering at home, hunkering down, and often feeling stagnant, fresh green life is emerging and growing with the warming temperatures and lengthening days. Normally, at this time of year, my environmental science students would be gearing up to give tours to grade school classes in Concordia’s Our Creator’s Classroom (OCC). We would be clearing paths, patrolling for invasive species, prepping the raised garden beds, deciding what plants to add to the rose garden, and practicing the lessons that the students would teach.
This year, alas, there will be no tours, but the plants don’t know that, so I’m still out in the OCC a couple times a week. It’s a nice, calming place to be with ample social distancing: 5 acres with no one but me and the squirrels, and the spiders, and the trees, and the millipedes, and the rhubarb, and the herbaceous undergrowth just pushing through the leaf litter — so I guess in a lovely way, I’m still far from alone. In a much larger sense, we are all far from alone, and being outside in creation is a wonderful reminder of that.
I encourage you to go outside (after this week of silly cold temperatures passes) and breathe in the calm, fresh air, feel the warm sunlight, and gaze at all the diversity that accompanies us on this planet. As you do, consider participating in the City Nature Challenge. The City Nature Challenge is a global effort to identify and map the ranges of plant, animal, and fungal species — and all it requires from you is a phone that can take pictures! The work of identifying and mapping is done by a community of experts whenever you upload an image of a species to the iNaturalist app (yes, it’s free). This app works anytime, but images uploaded between April 24-27 (the weekend following Earth Day) will be part of the City Nature Challenge. Go here for more info: https://citynaturechallenge.org/.
This is the first year for Fort Wayne to officially participate in the City Nature Challenge. Concordia would have been an organizer by opening up the OCC to the public and encouraging visitors to use the iNaturalist app as they walked through. We can’t do that now, but we can still participate in our own spaces — and, as with all things, we might be surprised by what we find.
So if you’ve ever wondered what that certain plant in the far corner of your yard is, download iNaturalist. If you want to see which little creatures depend on your bushes for a habitat, upload their photos. You’ll be able to check back in as little as a couple hours to see how experts have identified them, and you’ll be helping those experts better study the diversity of God’s creation!
For more ideas about exploring nature, check out the Fort Wayne CNC Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/FortWayneAreaCNC/
Laura Bohnke,
Director of Our Creator’s Classroom
Environmental Science Teacher