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EXPLORE NATURE AT HOME FGCU educator creates “I spy” nature booklet to guide families through fun activities they can do in the backyard. BY ANDREA STETSON
Ricky Pires wants children, their parents and even their grandparents to get outside and discover nature. A few days after the beaches, hiking paths and nature trails closed due to the coronavirus, Ricky sheltered inside coming up with a way for families to enjoy the outside.
Ricky is the founder and director of the Wings of Hope program at Florida Gulf Coast University. For 20 years she has been traveling to elementary schools around Southwest Florida teaching children about the environment, while also educating students at FGCU.
Now she is hoping that education continues while people take shelter at home. She created an 11-page “I Spy Nature at My Home Habitat” booklet. It includes pages for “I spy” organisms, food chains and food webs, and nature, backyard bingo, a wildlife word search, a crossword puzzle, a glossary and an answer key. The goal is to engage elementary students and families by observing the natural world in their own backyards.
“I came up with it saying we need to help out with this challenging world right now,” Ricky says. “I had lots of students, over 5,000 of them, and teachers, and I just thought this was a way we can help.”
That is just the beginning. Every three to four weeks Ricky plans to add another nature activity booklet to the Wings of Hope website.
“It is connecting with the grandparents, too,” Ricky says. “The grandparents can also do the activity where they are, and they can compare notes on FaceTime. That would be a highlight with it.”
Ricky hopes that the family nature hunts will continue even after the virus goes away.
“About 90 percent of the kids I see don’t go hiking with their families,” Ricky says. “So at least maybe we can get them out in their backyard.”
Ricky says the I spy activities work best with students from second grade to middle school. All the vocabulary and lessons correspond with Florida’s educational standards, she explains. She sent the information about the website and activities to fourth and fifth grade teachers throughout Lee and Collier counties.
“Teachers are putting it into their online lesson plans,” Ricky says. “It is just a great activity.”
Anna Godsea, the program coordinator and Wings of Hope education director at FGCU, helped create the activities. She hopes the I spy booklet entices families to enjoy nature together.
“A lot of people are saying they are able to reconnect with nature,” Anna says. “We get very busy with our day-to-day lives, and we don’t have time to stop and slow down and appreciate what
FREE BOOKLET Get the free “I Spy Nature at My Home Habitat” booklet at fgcu.edu/ cas/communityimpact/wingsofhope/ispy-nature-booklet-ada.pdf. Learn more about the Wings of Hope program at fgcu.edu/cas/ communityimpact/ wingsofhope.
is around us, and this is forcing us to do this. We can realize that this doesn’t have to be all bad.”
Anna hopes that families will do the activities together and extended families will join in through technology.
“That is the premise of it,” she says. “Parents are a child’s first teacher. That doesn’t need to stop just because they become school age and go into school. They can learn lots of things from their grandparents as well. It can incorporate parents and extended family. Luckily we live in an age where technology is accessible, so we can connect across large distances and explore our own backyards and talk about what we have in common in our own backyards and what we don’t.”
Anna would like to see families continue to do the activities after people can start going back to public places.
“By starting in your own backyard and taking that first step it makes you want to go and see more,” she says. “They might want to do something on a bigger and grander scale and hopefully that will open the door to venture into parks and nature trails.”
