The benefits of learning more about nature are limitless but include:
- Relaxation
- Great way to spend time with family
- Anyone can participate
- Encourages healthy activity by including hiking and camping
- It is inexpensive
Learning about nature and becoming involved with nature activities is a versatile hobby with multiple ways to include it in your life and spending as little or as much of your time as you would like.
A good example of how nature can enhance your life would be a typical camping trip. My family has enjoyed this activity for as long as I can remember. After planning where we would like to go and getting our supplies ready, we would arrive at a campground and start by putting up the tent. We have had some cases where we had to do this in the rain and while it is not much fun at the time, it does make for a memorable trip. We would also set up our sleeping bags (and when we got older, our air mattress). Most of the time we would take a hike using a trail map after gathering kindling for the fire we would make that evening. That is when we would be able relax and take in the smells and the sounds of the great outdoors and nature at her best. My son’s favorite camping activity has always been sitting around the campfire cooking food we would normally only have when we were camping like mountain pies, marshmallows, and sausages. We have had times where there were uninvited visitors such as skunks, raccoons, and opossum. Because there was no TV to watch or games to play in the evening, the family spent time talking and getting to know each other better. I believe this is a prime example of how nature can bring a family together.
Studying and becoming involved in nature can be a fun family activity for all ages. It can promote family bonding by sharing the experience of learning and discovering. When people hike together as a group and experience watching an animal in it’s natural habitat such as a beaver building a dam, this gives them a shared experience to talk about later.
One of the more important reasons to learn more about nature is to introduce it to kids as part of a family activity. It can be a good way to keep them off the cell phone or you can use apps from the cell phone to track progress on a trail or identify animals, plants and trees. Of course, depending on where your are, cell service may be non existent. Either way, it can show them how they do not need to be dependent on technology for entertainment or learning.
Now, I’m not suggesting you start your introduction to nature with a camping trip if you have never done it before. I think an easy way to start would be with a walk or hike, take a tree identification book with you and make occasional stops to see if you can identify some trees. In future posts I will have other suggestions that you can try to become more involved with nature.
Some identification books that I would recommend would be: National Audubon Society Field Guides and Peterson Field Guides
Or you can use online sources such as: https://www.thoughtco.com/identify-name-tree-using-leaf-key-1343488, https://www.arborday.org/trees/whattree/
Bottom line is nature is an important part of our world and there are many benefits of learning more about it. Learning about and becoming more involved with nature can bring a sense of inner peace, relaxation, and bring families closer together. You can choose to participate in this hobby as little or as much as you like and there are activities that all members of the family can do regardless of there physical or mental limitations.