Skip to main content

Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests

Get our e-news! Sign up

small nav

  • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Staff
    • Board of Trustees
    • Our History
    • Employment
    • Conservation Center
    • FAQs
    • Partners
    • Business Members
    • Annual Reports
    • Bylaws
    • Policies
  • log in
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram

Main menu

  • What we do
    • Land Conservation
    • Education & Events
    • Advocacy
    • Forestry & Recreation
    • News & Features
    • Forest Notes & More Publications
  • Current Projects
    • Mahoosuc Highlands, Shelburne
    • Forest Society North at The Rocks Campaign
    • Build Creek Farm Restrooms, Portsmouth
    • Mount Major Stewardship Fund
    • Recent Accomplishments
  • Visit & Explore
    • The Rocks
    • Conservation Center
    • Mount Major
    • Creek Farm
    • Forest Reservation Guide
    • Visitor Use Guidelines
  • Get Involved
    • Upcoming Events
    • Membership/Renewal
    • Support Our Work
    • Volunteer
    • Subscribe to E-news
  • Search

Search form

Donate
Menu

News

  • Something Wild Celebrates 25 Years on NHPR

    Dave Anderson, Chris Martin, Jessica Hunt
    March 10, 2023

    This week marks the 25th anniversary of Something Wild on NHPR.

  • Sophie Suggests: What to Watch this Winter

    Sophie Oehler
    February 28, 2023

    In a cinematic slump? Check out these nature themed movie and TV titles recommended by one of our own!

  • Forest Journal: Birdfeeders Attracting More Than Birds This Winter

    Dave Anderson
    February 26, 2023

    With forest food absent, wildlife patterns change.

Free Play In Nature — We ALL Learn

Cool tradition for a HOT day on the Merrimack River
Dave Anderson
July 21, 2022
Education
Merrimack Valley
Wildlife
Students pose for a group photo in the shade of silver maple forest
Students pose for a group photo in the shade of the silver maple forest. (Photo: Dave Anderson)

A tradition continued when English Language Learners students from nearby Broken Ground School, who are enrolled in summer camp, returned to the Forest Society's Merrimack River Outdoor Education and Conservation Area to explore the shallows in search of insects, tadpoles, frogs, toads and fish. The mid-summer heat makes a morning of wading in the shallows a perfect opportunity for free unstructured play in nature — and a powerful reminder of the formative experiences that help shape all adults.

Free play. Not structured. Get to the river and wade in — with a bucket or a net.  Or sit on the sandy bank in the shade of the silver maples to watch and to listen.   

Students splash in the Merrimack River.
Students and teachers enjoyed a splash in the Merrimack River during a hot month of the summer. (Photo: Sophie Oehler)

Thirteen international students and four adult school camp leaders were joined by two Forest Society education staffers and a family member. Dave Anderson and Sarah Kern joined teacher Ellen Kenny and her colleagues to facilitate the experience.

As a seasoned educator with 30 years of teaching experience here in Concord and elsewhere on Forest Society conservationlLand, I am reminded of several powerful lessons — for ME — not necessarily the students. I see again how these students innately seek out creatures— paricularly freshwater mussel shells or tiny fish or juvenile toads hopping and feeding on insects along the exposed wet sand of a sandbar of grasses and young silver maple seedlings.  A forest that will lie submerged during high water at other times of the year.

Students disperse and find — each according to their own particular interests — a place to search out small aquatic creatures and to splash and play to cool off in 90-degree heat.

Excited shouts of "Hey! I found one!" and desire to share with one another.  Then "Look at this! - Hey Mr. Dave - I think I found a..." 

... an animal scat — or a feather — a dragonfly or a whirling water beetle. Sarah Kern explains to a small group of one or two students at a time that some aquatic beetles can ride a small bubble of air.  I heard Sarah explain along the trail through the pine plantation forest:  "Yes — its called carbon dioxide, we need it to breathe — but you can't see it - it's invisible"

Students explored the sandbars and looked for toads with buckets.
Students explored the sandbars of the the Merrimack River Outdoor Education & Conservation Area along the river. (Photo: Sophie Oehler)

At the river, catching tiny fish with dip nets is difficult — unless a few kids herd the fish toward another holding a net.  This is how some waterfowl — Merganser ducks — learn to push fish toward other ducks waiting to catch them.  These students from Nepal, Africans, Brazil, and Afghanistan are a tribe of Concord kids playing in their local river — the Merrimack River.

Children instinctively jump into the chase and catching.  And then admiring each discovery with natural curiosity.

tiny toad in hand with students wading in background
A toad and a shallow river cove to explore

"Awww- I wanna see it! What is it? Can I hold it?"

I get the sense of a kind of genetic memory over generations of children learning about  their wild surroundings by catching and discovering as a precursor to obtaining food as adults. As children, we all once had the same natural and instinctive curiosity about nature so close to the surface when allowed to free play outdoors — and to discover at our own pace and interest levels.  Without being interrupted by teaching stations or formal instruction.    

Not one student wanted to leave the river or even get to the bank for snack. I threatened to eat up all the cookies if they didn't join us and then we'd again need to run to catch the bus back to Broken Ground School.

Watching the students and listening to the excitement in their voices, I figure, "These few precious hours of summer fun wading in the river are probably the very 'highest and best use' of this piece of conservation land." The lower 75 acres along the Merrimack river bank at the 103-acre Merrimack River Floodplain and adjacent Concord Conservation Center resounds with the echos of laughter and excited shouts of discoveries —  hopefully to last a lifetime of memories.   

 

Download the Forest Society Mobile App, powered by OuterSpatial

Available on the App Store
Get it on Google Play

Footer menu

  • Privacy Policy
  • About Us
Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests54 Portsmouth St.Concord, NH 03301
Phone: 603.224.9945Fax: 603.228.0423info@forestsociety.org
Land Trust Alliance accreditation logo