Your Mission: Explore!

You don't need to travel to a wilderness to have an adventure. Your next discovery may be waiting in your backyard, schoolyard, neighborhood park, or just outside your door.

Your mission begins the moment you step outside.

No plane ticket required.

No expedition to a distant rainforest.

No special laboratory.

All you need is a place to explore, a little time, and one very important piece of equipment:

Curiosity.

A naturalist learns to see the world differently. Where someone else sees a tree, a naturalist sees bark covered with lichens, leaves being eaten by caterpillars, insects hiding in crevices, birds searching the branches, and seeds waiting to become the next generation of trees.

Where someone else sees a patch of flowers, a naturalist sees bees collecting pollen, butterflies searching for nectar, spiders waiting for prey, beetles crawling between petals, and plants producing the seeds that will continue the cycle.

The natural world is filled with stories like these.

Your mission is to find them.

Mission 1: Find Five Living Things

Begin with the simplest challenge.

Find five different living things.

They might include a plant, bird, insect, spider, fungus, moss, or another organism.

Don't worry if you can't identify everything.

Instead, observe each one.

What does it look like?

Where did you find it?

What is it doing?

What is growing or living nearby?

Which one interests you most?

Now you've completed your first biodiversity survey.

But don't stop at five.

Once you begin looking carefully, you may be surprised by how quickly your list grows.

Mission 2: Meet a Plant

Choose one plant.

It doesn't have to be the biggest, prettiest, or most unusual plant you can find.

Now investigate it like a naturalist.

Look at the leaves.

Are they large or small? Smooth or fuzzy? Opposite each other or alternating along the stem?

Does the plant have flowers?

Seeds?

Fruit?

Look for evidence that something else has been using it.

Are there holes in the leaves?

Insects on the flowers?

A spider web between the branches?

Birds visiting the plant?

Now ask the most important question:

Who depends on this plant?

You may have begun by studying one species, but you are already discovering an ecosystem.

Mission 3: Go on an Insect Safari

You don't need lions and elephants to go on safari.

Choose a small patch of flowers, vegetation, or leaf litter and spend ten minutes searching for insects and other invertebrates.

Look for bees.

Butterflies.

Beetles.

Flies.

Ants.

Grasshoppers.

Caterpillars.

Don't forget spiders. They aren't insects, but they certainly belong on your safari.

Instead of collecting the animals, watch what they are doing.

Is the bee gathering pollen?

Is the butterfly drinking nectar?

Is the ant carrying something?

Is the spider hunting?

The most interesting discovery may not be what you find.

It may be what you see it doing.

Mission 4: Listen to the Wild

Find a safe place to sit.

Close your eyes.

Remain quiet for two minutes.

What do you hear?

A bird?

Cricket?

Cicada?

Frog?

Wind moving through leaves?

Water?

Something you can't identify?

Try separating the sounds.

Which is closest?

Which is farthest away?

Which sounds repeat?

Can you hear more than one bird species?

Now open your eyes.

You just explored nature without looking at it.

Naturalists often discover animals by sound long before they see them.

Mission 5: Become a Wildlife Detective

Your next challenge is unusual.

Find an animal without actually seeing the animal.

Look for evidence it left behind.

Tracks in mud.

A feather.

A nest.

A burrow.

A chewed acorn.

Holes in a leaf.

A woodpecker cavity.

A spider web.

A trail through vegetation.

Now investigate the evidence.

What might have created it?

What happened here?

How certain are you?

It's okay if the answer is “I don't know.”

A good detective doesn't invent an answer when the evidence isn't strong enough.

Neither does a good naturalist.

Mission 6: Discover What's Beneath Your Feet

Look down.

The soil beneath you isn't simply dirt.

It is part of a living system.

In an appropriate place, examine the ground and leaf litter without unnecessarily disturbing it.

Look for worms, ants, beetles, millipedes, fungi, roots, decaying leaves, seeds, and other signs of life.

Look closely at the decomposition happening around you.

A leaf falls from a tree.

What happens next?

Organisms begin breaking it down. Nutrients eventually return to the soil, where they can become available to plants.

Nature is constantly recycling.

Something that looks like the end of one story may actually be the beginning of another.

Mission 7: Find Five Nature Colors

Nature isn't just green.

Find five different colors without picking anything.

Look closely.

Maybe you'll find the yellow center of a flower, a red berry, blue on a bird's feather, orange fungus on a log, or purple on a tiny flower hidden in the grass.

Then make the challenge harder.

How many different shades of green can you find?

Naturalists become better observers by noticing details.

Color is a great place to practice.

Mission 8: Find a Nature Connection

This may be your most important mission.

Find two different living things interacting with each other.

Perhaps a bee visits a flower.

A caterpillar eats a leaf.

A bird searches a tree for insects.

A spider catches prey.

Ants carry seeds.

Fungi grow on decaying wood.

Watch what happens.

Then try to follow the connection farther.

A caterpillar eats a plant.

A bird eats the caterpillar.

The bird feeds its young.

Suddenly, three organisms are connected.

Keep following.

Naturalists eventually discover that nature isn't simply a collection of species.

It is a collection of relationships.

Mission 9: Return to the Same Place

Choose one small place.

It might be a tree, flower garden, creek, pond, patch of woods, or corner of your backyard.

Visit it today.

Record what you see.

Then return next week.

What changed?

Are different flowers blooming?

Did new insects appear?

Are the same birds present?

Did rain change the area?

Now return again.

Naturalists don't simply explore new places. They return to familiar ones because nature is always changing.

A place you visit once gives you a snapshot.

A place you visit repeatedly gives you a story.

Mission 10: Make a Field Note

Scientists and naturalists record their observations.

You can too.

Choose one discovery and write:

Date:Location:Weather:What I observed:What it was doing:One thing I noticed:One thing I wonder:

Add a drawing or photograph if you'd like.

Congratulations.

You've created a naturalist field record.

Keep doing this and, over time, your notebook becomes something remarkable: a history of the natural world as you observed it.

Mission 11: Make an Observation Count

Ready for the next level?

Turn an observation into citizen science.

Citizen- or community-science projects allow members of the public to contribute observations to larger scientific efforts. Depending on the project, participants might document birds, plants, pollinators, frogs, insects, seasonal changes, or biodiversity.

Young people can participate in many projects with appropriate adult guidance.

The important part is accuracy.

Record what you actually observed.

Don't guess if you aren't certain.

Follow the project's instructions.

Suddenly, exploring nature isn't only about what you can learn.

Your observations may contribute to what we can learn.

Mission 12: Explore After Dark

Nature doesn't close when the sun goes down.

With an adult, safely explore outside after dark.

Listen for frogs.

Look for moths.

Hear crickets and katydids.

Watch for fireflies during the appropriate season.

Listen for owls.

Notice how familiar surroundings feel different at night.

Some animals that were hidden all day are just beginning to become active.

This is an important naturalist lesson:

If you always explore at the same time, you may repeatedly meet only part of your wild neighborhood.

Mission 13: Teach Someone Else

For your final mission, choose one thing you discovered and share it.

Show someone how to recognize a bird.

Explain why a native plant is important.

Teach a younger child about pollinators.

Show your family evidence of wildlife in the backyard.

Take a friend on a listening walk.

Tell someone about an organism they have probably walked past hundreds of times.

When you help another person notice nature, something wonderful happens.

Your discovery becomes their discovery.

And you may have helped create another naturalist.

The Rules of Exploration

Every good mission has rules, and these are especially important.

Explore without causing unnecessary harm.

Observe wildlife from an appropriate distance. Leave nests and young animals alone. Don't pick wildflowers unless you know collecting is permitted and appropriate. Avoid chasing or repeatedly disturbing animals for photographs. Stay on trails where required.

If you investigate natural cover such as a log where doing so is permitted, return it carefully to its original position.

And never eat a wild plant, berry, mushroom, or other organism simply because you think you know what it is.

A naturalist doesn't prove curiosity by touching or collecting everything.

Sometimes the best way to explore is simply to watch.

Create Your Own Mission

Once you've completed these challenges, don't wait for someone else to tell you what to explore next.

Invent your own mission.

Can you find five different kinds of seeds?

Three different spider webs?

Five native flowers?

Evidence of three animals?

Ten different insects?

Can you identify five birds by sound?

Can you photograph the same tree once a month for a year?

Can you document every species you find in your backyard during one weekend?

Can you find an organism you've never noticed before?

Now you're doing more than completing a challenge.

You're asking your own questions.

And that's exactly what a naturalist does.

Your Mission Has Just Begun

There is no finish line for becoming a naturalist.

Complete all thirteen missions and there will still be another bird to hear, another insect to discover, another plant to identify, another relationship to understand, and another question to ask.

That's what makes exploring nature so exciting.

You can never discover all of it.

So grab a notebook.

Step outside.

Slow down.

Look up.

Look down.

Listen.

Ask questions.

Follow the clues.

And don't worry if you don't know what you're going to find.

That's the point.

Your mission: Explore!

The natural world is waiting.

Nature on the Brink: Youth Connection — Naturalist SeriesInspiring curiosity, building connections, and growing the next generation of conservationists.