Star light, star bright...

This Saturday night, I'll be nestled with a group of Cub Scouts, including my son Dashie, and a group of parents looking at the stars. Towards Leo, to be exact. If the sky is clear, we'll be snuggled in snowsuits and sleeping bags, stretched out on full beach recliners, waiting for the Leonid Meteorite Shower. Although the best viewing starts after midnight, and occurs just before dawn, when we expect the Scouts to be back home, they should be able to catch a few of the early meteorites, which tend to have a longer arc than the ones that pepper the sky later in the evening. These early ones are called "earth grazers", because of the angle they enter the atmosphere. The Cubs will be amazed to learn that often a shooting star is no bigger than a grain of sand when it begins to burn up in the atmosphere, 150 miles above us.

The most important lesson they will learn is that not all science comes from a book; that there remains mystery and wonder in the environment, even in the universe, that can be accessed at will. We need only open our eyes. If I was writing curriculum, I would take every second grader out of the classroom for a week every Spring, and walk them up to the cemetery or get them out to Parker River and teach them how to identify birds by sound, by size, by notable features, by color. I would teach them to observe in stillness, to use binoculars, to note details.

There are studies that show if you let a child explore nature, the woods, the parks on their own or in small groups between the ages of 5 and 11, you have forever altered their view of nature and the preciousness and wonder it brings to life- you cultivate a respect for it that is a lifelong asset.

I was lucky enough to be able to do exactly that- spending summers in the Catskill Mountains at my Grandfather's Bungalow Colony, on 50 Acres. Up at 6 AM, oatmeal by 6:30, then my brother and I were off into the woods, climbing trees, looking for salamanders, wading in streams. If we remembered, we came home for lunch; if not, we'd eat the blueberries and rasberries that grew on the property. As the sun set we'd return home, filthy, clothing sometimes torn, exhausted, scratched, but impossibly happy and ready to do it again the next
day. Sometimes, we'd wake up in the middle of the night and sneak out with our flashlights to watch the deer eat apples from the trees in the middle of the bungalow colony.

The picture above comes courtesy of the Japanese Space Agency, which put a satellite into orbit around the moon last month. The satellite is equipped with the first high definition cameras flown to the moon; it captured this earth-rise. You can't see the bungalow colony, which is no longer in the family, and is actually a bunch of caved in buildings. I will never forget the lessons taught to me, a city kid, by the the trees and insects, vines, plants and salamanders. I was open to learn, and nature provided.