It’s August, which means back to school for many of us, but that doesn’t mean nature study has to come to an end. In fact, this month many animals and insects are as busy as ever, preparing for cooler months ahead, and many plants are sending out seeds and seed heads for next year.
Check out these 5 nature study ideas, activities and resources for the month of August (plus lots of FREEBIES!)
1. Sunflowers
What says summer more than bright, cheery sunflowers? They grow wild all over the highways, hiking trails, and open spaces here in the late Colorado summertime.
Observe the Sunflower Life Cycle
Watch the life cycle of a sunflower in real time! You’ll need:
- A clear plastic ziploc bag
- Tape
- A damp paper towel
- Several sunflower seeds
- A sunny window
Fold the paper towel to fit inside the bag. Dampen the paper towel well. Place 2-4 seeds on top of the towel, toward the bottom. Gently place the paper towel and seeds into the bag, zip it up and tape it to a sunny windowsill. You can label it with the name of the seeds with permanent marker, if you wish.
Keep a close eye on the seeds each day, and look for roots emerging between days 3-5. Make sure the paper towel doesn’t dry out (gently open the bag and spray with a water bottle every couple of days, or when needed). Watch as the roots continue to grow toward the bottom and shoots grow from the top. Soon you will have seedlings with leaves reaching toward the sunlight. If you want, gently transplant your seedlings into small pots filled with potting soil.
Make Sunflower Art from Nature
I absolutely love this idea from Just Artful Things. First, paint a circle of brown on your paper with acrylic or temperura paint. Then, paint the back of an oval shaped leaf with yellow or orange and stamp it around the circle, creating a sunflower!
Learn About the Fibonacci Sequence
Did you know – spirals occur over and over in nature and they’re easy to find if you’re paying attention. Many of these spirals follow a special mathematical sequence of numbers called the Fibonacci sequence, where each number is the sum of the 2 numbers before it (1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,etc). Here are some of these special mathematical spirals found in nature:
🌀Sunflower seeds (and other flowers)
🌀Seashells
🌀Snail shells
🌀Nautilus shells
🌀Sprouting ferns
🌀Chameleon tails
🌀Grapevine tendrils
🌀Pinecone scales
🌀Pineapples
🌀Galaxies
🌀Hurricanes
🌀DNA
Take a walk around your yard or neighborhood and see how many of these spirals you can find in nature (pay special attention to flowers and plants).
(Learn more about the Fibonacci sequence with this printable!)
3. Tide Pools
Even if you don’t live near the ocean, tide pools are incredible ecosystems to study, with tons of amazing creatures to learn about.
Learn About Tide Pool Animals
Tide pool organisms have pretty amazing adaptations to help them survive in harsh conditions, with pounding waves, changing water levels and fluctuating temperatures. They have to be able to survive periods underwater and exposed to air. Summer is a great time to learn about these tide pool animals!
Check out the NEW Seashore Journal for tons of printables, resources, activities and experiments about the intertidal and the animals that live there!
Go on a Tide Pool Scavenger Hunt (Freebie!)
If you’re lucky enough to live near the beach, or are taking a trip to the beach before school starts, check out this FREE Tidepool Scavenger Hunt printable!
Learn How Gills Work
Many tide pool animals use gills (either internal or external) to breath, including fish, sharks, crustaceans (like crabs and hermit crabs), clams, oysters, octopuses and squid. This experiment is a simplified version of how marine animals use gills to survive. You will need:
- Basket-style coffee filter
- 2 clear cups
- Rubberband
- Water
- Dirt
Using a rubber band, attach the coffee filter to the top of the first cup. There should be a little dip in the filter to catch the dirt. Fill the second cup with water and carefully stir in a spoonful of dirt. The dirt floating in the water represents dissolved oxygen. Slowly pour the dirty water over the coffee filter and into first cup. The coffee filter will catch the dirt, allowing the water to pass through. You might have to pour a little, then wait for it to strain, then pour some more.
Gills work at “catching” oxygen, similar to our coffee filter. As water runs over an animal’s gills, tiny blood vessels grab the oxygen in the water and deliver it throughout the animal’s body.
Gills can look different depending on the animal. Some animals have feathery looking external gills, and some have internal gills. Some marine animals, like hermit crabs, can survive both in and out of the water. Although hermit crabs can live on the shore, they can only survive where the moist air can move across their gills.
2. Grasshoppers
There’s no insect that says “summer” to me like the grasshopper. Usually by August, our fields and lawns have dried out and there are an abundance of grasshoppers around, in all different colors.
Grasshoppers have lived on the earth before even the dinosaurs. They are amazing jumpers and can leap up to 20 times their own body length using powerful spring-loaded back legs. If a human could jump like a grasshopper, he could clear a five-story building and cross the length of a football field in just three huge leaps!
Go on a Grasshopper Nature Walk
Take a walk along a meadow, field or even in your yard and hunt for grasshoppers. You can bring a butterfly net or catch and release container to observe these little critters up close. A magnifier also works well to observe their amazing spring-loaded legs up close. (Be gentle handling them and release them back to the same area promptly.) Bring a nature journal and draw a picture of the grasshoppers you found.
Make Clothespin Grasshoppers
We love this idea from Play Street Museum for making clothespin grasshoppers!
4. Summer Pond Study
Late summer is a great time to do a pond or wetland nature study, as they are remarkably different than in the spring. There is typically much more vegetation, lots of algae and floating plants on the surface, and mature cattails swaying along the edges.
Explore a Pond or Wetland in Late Summer
By August, frogs and toads are done laying eggs and their spawn have developed into adults, which spend much of late summer feeding on insects, worms, slugs, and other small prey. It’s also peak season for dragonflies, patrolling the water and hunting other flying insects with extreme precision.
Take a stroll around a local pond and see what looks different from your spring observations. What plants and animals do you notice? Bring a nature journal and set aside some time to draw what you find.
Go Pond Dipping
One of the best ways to learn about pond life is to get up close and personal. Grab a large plastic storage container (preferably clear or white), some nets and a magnifying glass if you have one. Scoop some pond water into the container, and use your net to see what you can find. This is a great way to catch frogs, fish, tadpoles, insects, nymphs and more. Once your kiddos are done observing their finds, gently pour the water back into the pond.
Check out The Pond Journal for unit studies on each of these topics, as well as a handy pond dipping tracker.
Explore the Dragonfly Life Cycle
The dragonfly life cycle has three main stages: egg, nymph (larva), and adult. Most of their life is spent underwater as a little nymph before they emerge into the air as winged adult dragonflies. This time of year, you should see an abundance of dragonflies and damselflies near the water. You may also be able to see empty husks clinging to reed stems, marking where a dragonfly nymph has transformed into a winged adult.
(We like using the dragonfly unit from the Pond Journal to learn about the dragonfly life stages and life cycle!)
5. The Perseid Meteor Shower
The Perseid Meteor Shower is one of the brightest and longest-lasting meteor showers and it happens in August! The best time to catch the peak of all the meteor action is between August 9-14th.
Learn about Meteor Showers
A meteor shower happens when Earth passes through trails of debris left behind by comets or asteroids, and many “shooting stars” can be observed in the sky at once. Most pieces are no larger than a grain of sand and burn up completely. Earth crosses these paths every year.
The 1860 Great Meteor was seen and talked about all over the United States. American landscape artist Frederic Church painted this celestial event in his artwork entitled, The Meteor of 1860.
Have a Viewing Party
The warm, summer nights of August makes for good viewing conditions. Grab a blanket or some sleeping bags and head out after dark on the peak August nights for viewing. If you have a place for a fire, make s’mores or cook over the campfire while you wait for the skies to darken.
Make a Night Sky Chart (Free Download!)
You fill in this FREE star chart while you spend time gazing at the skies. What constellations do you see? Bring some books or guides to help you identify the constellations in the sky viewed from your part of the world.
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