Nature Bulletin No. 465-A   October 7, 1972
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
George W. Dunne, President
Roland F. Eisenbeis, Supt. of Conservation

****:SCHOOL TRIPS IN AUTUMN

Autumn is an ideal season for classrooms out-of-doors, when teachers 
and their pupils enjoy and learn from trips to convenient natural areas 
such as our forest preserves. The days are usually sunny, the air is cool 
and invigorating, the fields and woodlands are clothed with tapestries of 
rich colors, the birds are flocking southward, and it is harvest time in all 
the land.

Field trips, now or at any time in the school year, make real and vivid 
those subjects studied in the classroom and its textbooks. On field trips, 
teachers and youngsters explore and discover together. They employ all 
five senses: they see, hear, smell, taste and feel. Such learning, by the 
most natural and enjoyable process, is rapid and sticks with them. 
Inevitably, a field trip will yield a fund of unforgettable experiences and 
a wealth of specimens for the classroom or pupils' own collections.

The vivid hues and blended patterns of our autumn foliage are world 
famous. Pressed and dried between the pages of newspapers, autumn 
leaves hold their colors for years. In the forest preserves there are many 
wild fruits -- plums, crabapples, red haws, elderberries and wild grapes 
-- which may be used in jellies and preserves or eaten raw. There are 
walnuts, hickory nuts and hazelnuts. Acorns may be used in nature 
crafts or sprouted and allowed to grow in pots.

In the fields and woodlands there are many plants with seeds that have 
tiny hooks or sharp points and are hitchhikers that cling to the fur of 
animals and to woolly garments: burdock burs, begger lice, sticktights 
and Spanish needles. Take some back to the schoolroom and plant 
them, or make a labeled collection in cellophane envelopes. Such class 
room projects, utilizing the leaves, wildflowers, edible fruits, nuts, 
acorns and seeds available in autumn are described in "Natural Science 
Through the Seasons", by J. A. Partridge, and similar books which 
should be in school libraries for use by teachers.

Dozens of projects can be devised from materials collected during a trip 
in the preserves. A variety of small animal and plant life can be brought 
back in boxes or jars and enjoyed for weeks or months. Tadpoles, 
crayfish, snails, aquatic insects and water plants live well in gallon jars. 
A slab of moss, kept moist in a dish of water, will become a miniature 
garden.

Large yellow-and-black garden spiders, in screened boxes, will spin 
new webs if fed on flies, crickets and grasshoppers. Caterpillars such as 
the Woolly Bear, fed on the kinds of leaves they like, can be watched 
until they spin cocoons which, like those of other large moths, may be 
saved until next spring when the adults emerge.

If you possibly can, visit one of our nature centers where all of these 
and many other projects are on display. When planning an autumn field 
trip and for answering pupils' questions, we recommend that, from your 
files, you study the following nature bulletins issued in previous years: 

No. 35  -- Seed Dispersal
No. 124 -- Jack Frost
No. 161 -- Edible Fall Fruits
No. 165 -- Spider Webs
No. 238 -- Autumn Insects
No. 314 -- The Woolly Bear
No. 418 -- Garden Spiders
No. 431 -- The Asters

We need and will welcome your suggestions for later bulletins to be 
issued, seasonally, about field trips at other times of the year.

Wherever you look, there is something to see.