My job, in a nutshell, is to teach people to pay attention to the little things and then, ASK WHY? You’ve heard it from me before and I’ll continue to say it here (but this time with a little help from my friend Alexandria Lupton). The best way to hone your science skills is to learn to make nature observations. Look for the little things. Get down on the ground. Get dirty, get wet, get real. This is how you make concrete connections with the world around you.
Alexandria has written a blog post for us about that exact thing. She is a fantastic NC State Student who has been working with urban ecologist Sara Gagné this summer, and we are thrilled to have her share some of her own urban ecology observations.
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Written By Alexandria Lupton, NC State Student
You don’t need to be a photographer to enjoy the smaller things in nature. I take photos of wildlife with my phone all the time. You’ll find that there’s always something to see when you look closely at the world around you.
I was walking outside the other day when I saw a luna moth resting on the side of one of the buildings I was walking by. My phone did a great job of capturing the soft elegance of its bright green wings. Even the tiny orange antennae stood out as a little speck between the more muted gray slats of the building wall. A detail that tends to always stand out to me when looking at moths is how they have a pair of larger wings, and then smaller wings that have an elongated portion which almost resembles a tail. Luna moths have been seen less and less in the Raleigh area over time because of construction, light pollution, and overall destruction of their environment. So seeing one in the middle of the day, clinging to the side of this building in rainy weather, was such an amazing sight to see.
In the Looking Closely video, Melissa Dowland, the former Coordinator for Teacher Education at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, demonstrates the fantastic tools immediately at our disposal, or not too far out of reach, that allow us to view nature in a new way. Whether it’s a magnifying glass, a phone, or a pair of binoculars flipped around, there are so many creative ways in which we can engage with nature. Even nature within ourselves is beautiful. I encourage you to check out the Upon Closer Inspection activity, where you can map out the intricate maze-like pathways that make up your fingerprint.
As you’re dabbling in graphite, don’t forget to apply some artistry in Seeing like Georgia O’Keeffe and let your creativity shine. As Melissa points out in the video, there are many amazing things around us, and by getting your hands dirty and up close and personal with your surroundings, your neighborhood is now filled with new possibilities.
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Thank you to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences for partnering with the NC Science Trail.
