Learning about nature in the backyard
When I grew up I was fortunate to have lived in a house that had a large, wooded yard. I had woods to play in and explore while still having the advantages of living in a good urban neighborhood. One of my favorite summertime pastimes was camping in the backyard.
My brother and I spent many nights under a tarp tied between trees, or later in a real tent, listening to the sounds of the night. We learned about nature and being self-sufficient on our own in the “wild,” while being within easy reach of home.
We did not encounter dangerous animals, even if in our imaginations they were everywhere. We practiced sneaking through the woods to avoid scaring away animals, and to spy on the other neighborhood kids. We were Indians, we were explorers, we were early frontiersmen all rolled into one.
We learned how to make a camp fire, how to use a hunting knife safely, and how to set up a camp safely and comfortably. We learned how to set up a tent or tarp to withstand the rain, and how to place a ground cloth to keep the rain water from running into your tent. We practiced living without the “modern conveniences” of easy running water, and cooked over a camp stove.
Often these lessons were learned by way of making mistakes, such as setting up the ground cloth incorrectly and spending a long miserable night in a wet sleeping bag. But nothing teaches like adversity, and often it is the times of adversity that we remember most easily, and with fondness.
I have no doubt that these early experiences influenced me later in life to further explore my love of nature and science, and to helped me make the decision to go into science as a profession. Truly, my time in the yard prepared me for a lifetime of learning.
