Naturalist Backpacks
Overview
These backpacks come with an activity guide and gear for children of all ages and skill levels to explore the outdoors. This water-resistant kit can be used year-round, rain or shine. We encourage you to explore Saint Edward State Park and beyond during your one week check-out period. Need more time or additional materials? Let us know in the checkout interest form.
Backpack materials
- Range of children’s books to choose from
- Activity Guide
- Hand lens/magnifying collection jar
- Whiteboard, marker, and eraser
- Pedometer
- Poncho
- Sitting pad (if needed)
- Four local laminated field guides
- Cascadia Field Guide
Suggested activities
- What is the current season and how do you know? Use all your senses to experience St. Edward State Park this season. Return over time to witness how the landscape and its diverse inhabitants evolve across weeks, months, and years.
- How is a forest a community? A forest, like any ecosystem, is a complex web of relationships. Use this activity to explore the connections within St. Edward State Park and its surroundings. Compare your observations and questions to those in your own neighborhood.
- Pollinators in the park. Learn about the different types of bees in St. Edward State Park and their relationships with local flowering plants.
- Writing and reading poetry. Use free writing about your observations of the land to effortlessly create poetry in places. Record your poems over time to see how this form of writing can support deeper noticing and wondering in and about places.
- Histories of places: How did this place come to be? Learn more about how St. Edwards State Park came to be across multiple timescales through the relationship of Kokanee salmon and humans. Reflect on your own experiences with this place over time, and your hopes for St. Edward State Park and other places in the future.
- Resources and further learning. Continue your learning and place-based engagements in your own neighborhood with links and resources listed here. Links include an online version of this guide to support explorations in your own neighborhood.