Hello again, STEM Tuesday friends. Here in Utah the spring has been iffy, with bitter winds and snow as recently as two weeks ago. Now that the air is warm and filled with little white blossoms from the cherry trees, it seems like we’re finally close to summer.
With the warming weather, and our monthly theme of naturalists, my first impulse is to recommend a nature walk. When I was young, I loved looking at different leaf shapes, and feeling their various textures. I remember washing out an Altoids tin and keeping an assortment of dried flowers, twigs, and rocks. These sorts of outings are timeless.
It being poetry month, I have a wonderful resource for you: a book about writing nature poems, written for and featuring young poets called A Crow Doesn’t Need a Shadow: A Guide to Writing Poetry From Nature by Lorraine Ferra.
Indeed, the first chapter is about poetry field trips; getting into the great outdoors and experiencing the primary text of the world around us. Ferra writes,
Weather is an endless source of ideas for poems. You need only to step outside to feel the freshness of new-fallen snow, or a light rainfall. If circumstances limit your activities and keep you indoors, a poetry field trip can be as quick as a few steps to a window. From there, you can watch dark thunderclouds riding toward you like a herd of buffalo or catch sight of a rainbow before it disappears.”
While this book offers plenty of writing prompts, I’ll let you discover those yourselves (see page 21), instead opting to share some from my own arsenal.
Writing Prompt 1 | A Form Poem
Have your children try writing a seven-line diamante. It’s a little like a Mad Lib, in that they’ll need to know their parts of speech. Typically, diamante poems juxtapose two things—whether like or unlike—so the prompt is to choose two parts of nature and bookend the poem with those, like this:
seed
– –
– – –
– – – –
– – –
– –
pebble
From there, build the poem accordingly. The seven words following your first line should modify the beginning word. The seven words preceding the last line should modify the last word. Each hyphen represents a word. The double hyphen lines are filled with adjectives. The triple hyphen lines are filled with gerunds (verbs ending with -ing), and the middle line features nouns. A completed poem might look like this:
seed
patient, thirsty
uncurling, stretching, waving
stem, blossom, path, river
flying, twirling, sinking
kicked, settled
pebble
Writing Prompt 2 | Short Stories About Small Creatures
If going outside for a nature walk isn’t possible, the next best thing is bringing the outdoors in. If you feel adventurous, invite students to bring their own insects, bugs, or spiders to class (in a jar or other container). Otherwise, choose one or two to bring. Easy ones to capture might include pill bugs, common house flies, or pollinators like ladybugs. In a pinch, you can purchase some from pet stores, which usually carry live crickets (about $7 for 40), worms, and other small creatures. Several years ago, I caught a jumping spider similar to this guy in my back yard:
Encourage your students to write a short story from the perspective of one of these small creatures. What would the world look like? How could a normal object from school life, like a pencil or calculator, be experienced by a non-human? What kind of challenges might this kind of main character face? For example, what color of acrylic paint would a ladybug be most attracted to, or how many ants would it take to carry a cookie? This exercise may lead students to write silly stories, but it’s a fun prompt that encourages empathy.
Wherever you are, I hope you’re enjoying nature and the weather, helping your budding naturalists-in-the-making to observe and discover more about the world around them.
Best,
Stephanie
A nature-loving creative, Stephanie Jackson writes poems, articles, picture books, middle-grade novels, and more. Her nonfiction has been published in Cricket magazine and her poems have been published in The Dirigible Balloon and various literary journals including Touchstones, where she’s been a contributing poetry editor. Professional affiliations include the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and The Authors Guild. She’s graduating this month from Utah Valley University with her English degree, emphasis in creative writing. You can read more at StephanieWritesforKids.com.
I Begin with Spring: The Life and Seasons of Henry David Thoreau 
Wildheart: the Daring Adventures of John Muir
Darwin’s Rival: Alfred Russel Wallace and the Search for Evolution
The Observologist: A Handbook for Mounting Very Small Scientific Expeditions 
Carla Mooney loves to explore the world around us and discover the details about how it works. An award-winning author of numerous nonfiction science books for kids and teens, she hopes to spark a healthy curiosity and love of science in today’s young people. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, three kids, and dog. Find her at 
Jon: When I make books about various STEM topic I want them to mix and match up. There’s a universe where you could have a periodic table that’s couched inside of a narrative – like a 50’s surfing narrative. So I was looking for the genre/theme that would fit the periodic table. I felt like I was exploring the elements. They mix and match. There are similarities between some of them. Some of the qualities of the materials felt so wildly alien.
Jon: Yes – Mel is really paralyzed by her fears. I had huge test anxiety when I was in school but at the same time I knew all the information. I could have used some of the confidence that Mel gains by the end of the book.
Jon: It’s hard but also easy. I have a lot of practice. There is not an upper ceiling in what you can make accessible to young readers. Physics of Life in Germany is a biophysics facility focused on using physics to understand biological organization. I work on 
