It's always good to get the kids outside during school vacation week, and if you want to teach them a little something about nature, Naturalist Bridget Butler has a great idea on how to teach them to identify some of the signs that wildlife leaves behind. Do it with yummy treats!
"One of the best things to look at, when you're out and about in the snow, is for animal tracks and signs. So this could be footprints, but it could also be... scat! Or poop."
"And you're going to teach us how to ..look for scat?"
"I am! I'm going to teach you a really good activity to do with kids to get used to how to identify scat by shape. So I have some delicious, yummy brownies here, and one of the things that I remember doing as a kid, is mooshing them into little tiny balls. So that's exactly what we're going to do right now. So we're going to try to make rabbit scat, and rabbit scat is round."
"Out of brownies! Kids are going to love that."
"Yes."
"But it's not all that big. Oh, I think I have too much. I should eat some..."
"Eat some.. Eeow!"
"Ha ha ha."
"Alright."
"Is that too big?"
"Oh yeah, that one is like moose scat."
"So, make it round, to make rabbit scat. Now if you want make deer scat, we're just going to squeeze that a little bit and make it an oval shape. That's deer.
Now you can get really complex if you have a tracking book, and you can make fox scat, which tends to be longer, and twisted on the end. And then you can make piles and piles of scat before you go out on your walk. The best part, is you get to eat it."
"Eat it! That get's their attention too doesn't it. "
"Uh huh! mmmm!"
