Category: Education

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A Friend to Guide the Way

Red-tailed Hawk, Courtesy & Copyright Joseph Kozlowski, Photographer
Red-tailed Hawk, Courtesy & Copyright Joseph Kozlowski, Photographer
“Look, up on that pole! There’s a huge bird! I think it’s a hawk!”

A storm of students put their half-eaten PB & Js down, grabbed binoculars, and raced to get a better view. One of my 2nd-grade students, while eating lunch under the King’s Nature Park gazebo, had spotted the special visitor.

Students bustled around with their binoculars trying to get a better look at the far-away hawk. Excited fragments of observations eventually started ringing out.

“Look at that sharp beak!”

“I can see a red tail!”

“It’s mostly brown with some lighter feathers on the chest!”

“It looks like it’s watching us!”

Jack Greene guided our students, Courtesy & Copyright Joseph Kozlowski, Photographer
Jack Greene guided our students
Courtesy & Copyright Joseph Kozlowski, Photographer
Eventually students returned binoculars, wolfed down their remaining bits of food, and found their instructor for the afternoon learning centers. About 25 kids made their way to me and Jack Greene, an expert naturalist. My group strapped on their binocular harnesses, left the gazebo, and started off on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. We had one objective; to observe and wonder about nature.

We forged a 6-inch trickle of water – the endeavor being met with laughs, screams and giggles, proceeded higher onto the bench where the remnants of a recent fire still blackened the hillside, and made our way along the trail to a choke cherry bush which was to be the turning point. The students happily watched and listened to Black-Capped Chickadees and House Sparrows playing fall games in the crackly bramble. We all turned and started our journey back to the gazebo.

“Everyone, look up there! Soaring high above us! That looks like the huge hawk we saw at lunch! I think it’s following us!” came the shriek of an excited young girl.

Intrigued students looked up to see the large, soaring hawk far above, lazily drifting circles toward the gazebo. Naturally, the kids couldn’t let it get away. The unrestrainable naturalists raced down the gravel trail in the direction of the hawk.

The hawk did get too far away. We all rejoined and continued our walk back. No more than 5 minutes later, a shout echoed out: “It landed! That hawk that has been following us all day landed! I kept a close eye on it and it landed up there on a post!”

The hunt was afoot. We picked up our pace to get close to the big hawk that had landed on an electrical post a few hundred yards ahead of us. We crept up and it posed for the eager kid eyes and hasty teacher cameras. But little voices aren’t quiet, and the hawk launched from the post and took flight before many could get a good look.

We had to get back. After Jack gave a mini-lesson about the length of a Black-Billed Magpie tail indicating approximate age, we hustled to return to the gazebo.

Our group of hot, sweaty, and energized naturalists arrived back at the gazebo and gathered for a final closing discussion. We huddled close, and amidst my parting words, a boy loudly interrupted and pointed to a nearby telephone pole. “Everyone, look! The hawk came to say goodbye!”

We all turned, and perched on the pole was the same hawk that had followed us that day; our guide, our companion, our friend. It took off and slowly, methodically, made low circles above our head, as if to say “Now you can see me, I am your friend. Goodbye, little ones. We had a special journey together.”

I am Dr. Joseph Kozlowski, and I am wild about outdoor education in Utah!

Credits:

Images: Courtesy & Copyright Joseph Kozlowski, Photographer, Used by Permission
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright © Kevin Colver, https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections/kevin-colver and including contributions from Anderson, Howe, and Wakeman.
Text:     Joseph Kozlowski, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University https://edithbowen.usu.edu/
Additional Reading Links: Joseph Kozlowski & Lyle Bingham

Additional Reading:

Joseph (Joey) Kozlowski’s pieces on Wild About Utah:

Red-tailed Hawk, All About Birds, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-tailed_Hawk/overview

Black-capped Chickadee, All About Birds, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black-capped_Chickadee

House Sparrow, All About Birds, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/House_Sparrow

Black-beak Magpie, All About Birds, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black-billed_Magpie

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Solar Calendars

This [observatory in Chacho Canyon, NM], is constructed of three large stone slabs [.https://wildaboututah.org/wp-content/uploads/sdagger_s1.jpg] wedged upright with smaller stones. On the day of the summer solstice, a dagger of light cast by the rising sun bisects a spiral carved into the rock behind the stones. On the winter solstice, two daggers of light frame the spiral. https://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/suntime/images/sdagger2_s.jpg
This [observatory in Chacho Canyon, NM], is constructed of three large stone slabs wedged upright with smaller stones. On the day of the summer solstice, a dagger of light cast by the rising sun bisects a spiral carved into the rock behind the stones. On the winter solstice, two daggers of light frame the spiral.
Courtesy NASA Solar Science
https://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/suntime/talk1.stm
High on a remote butte on the Colorado Plateau, two spirals were etched into the rock centuries ago by Ancestral Puebloans. The petroglyphs are tucked discreetly behind three sandstone slabs that lean against the bedrock wall. The play of light that reaches through the gaps in the slabs bisect the large spiral on summer solstice near noon. On winter solstice, two ‘daggers’ of light bracket the large spiral perfectly. The smaller spiral is bisected with another shaft of light on the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. This is not accidental.

Indigenous people in the far reaches of the planet, constructed monuments with intention that mark the position of the sun on the solstices and equinoxes—the pyramids of Egypt, the moai on Rapa Nui (the most isolated island on earth), the temples of Chichén Itzá, Stonehenge, and numerous others.

These solar calendars where created thousands of years ago, before airplanes, satellites, space shuttles, and smartphones. They were likely constructed without any knowledge that other people in other parts of the world were doing the same. Each of these monuments are distinctive in their approach, a testament to both human curiosity and creativity.

Solar Calendar and Sundial Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell
Solar Calendar and Sundial
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Mount Logan Discovery Solar Calendar

Solar Calendar - How it Works Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell Solar Calendar – How it Works
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Solar Calendar Design Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell Solar Calendar Design
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Observing From the Solar Calendar Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell Observing From the Solar Calendar
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Completed Solar Calendar Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell Completed Solar Calendar
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Solar Calendar Near Solstice Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell Solar Calendar Near Solstice
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Solar Calendar Layout in the Snow Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell Solar Calendar Layout in the Snow
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Observations: The Shadow Grew Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell Observations: The Shadow Grew
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Mount Logan Discovery Human [Analemmatic] Sundial

Human Sundial, Pre-Installation, Month Stone Layout Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell Human Sundial
Pre-Installation
Month Stone Layout
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Students Install the Solar Sundial Month Blocks Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell Students Install the Solar Sundial Month Blocks
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

When I started teaching 6th grade science at Mount Logan Middle School (in Logan, Utah), in 2003, state curriculum standards required me to teach why we have seasons, why we have night and day, and the basics of the solar system. The science textbook would put insomniacs to sleep. I struggled to figure out how to teach these concepts in ways that would captivate my students’ attention and allow them the chance to construct knowledge through project-based learning.

I was explaining my fascination with ancient solar calendars to my sixth graders in class one day and in the moment I said, “Hey, we should build a solar calendar at our school.” My students cheered a loud “Yeah!” and a new project was born.

I did some research, wrote and received a $500 grant from the Logan Schools Foundation for materials, ruffled a few feathers, and set to work with a simple plan that involved my 6th graders at every step. We cemented a metal pole in the ground on the edge of the soccer field, decorated with student art representing the four seasons. We surrounded the pole with a circular pattern of paver stones, enlisted the sand blasting services of a local headstone company, and then we started marking the shadow of the tip of the pole throughout the year. We had no idea how it would turn out.

What I thought would be a year-long project became a five year project. The shadows cast by the pole were not always easy to observe with storms and cloud cover. Cache Valley inversions—that trap fog and smog in the valley—made marking winter solstice shadow lines especially illusive.

We would mark the tip of the shadow throughout the day and then connect the dots to trace and identify the patterns. On the spring equinox a curious thing happened—we discovered the shadow line makes a perfectly straight line that runs exactly west to east. The same is true for the autumnal equinox. We did some research and confirmed our findings. This is something you can try anywhere. This year the autumnal equinox occurs September 22nd. Mark the tip of the shadow of any pole or post throughout the day on fairly level ground in your yard—an hour or two apart if you want, but the intervals don’t really matter. Then connect the dots and see what happens.

The solar calendar at Mount Logan Middle School marks the time of year and is our evidence that the earth’s axis is tilted.

We added an interactive sundial, with a human gnomon. When you stand on the correct month stone, your shadow falls on the time of day. The human sundial is our evidence that the earth spins on its’ axis.

Outside of school hours, you can find and interact with the human sundial and solar calendar on the soccer field at Mount Logan Middle School, located north of the sand volleyball court. Even though I no longer work there, I visit a couple of times each year. I take my weed eater, a shovel, and a blower and clean up the paver stones that mark the shadow lines of the solstices and equinoxes. I am frequently there alone in the evenings when I do this. While I work, I wonder about the hands that carved those spirals in the Cliff House Sandstone behind the slabs of rock in the New Mexican desert. I always set down my tools for a few minutes and watch with amazement as the shadow tracks along the pathways my sixth graders marked two decades ago.

I am Eric Newell, and I am wild about Utah and equinoxes and solstices.

Credits:
Images: Courtesy NASA Solar Science and Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer and author
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright © Anderson, Howe, Wakeman
Text: Eric Newell, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University
Additional Reading: Eric Newell & Lyle Bingham

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah Pieces by Eric Newell

http://MountLoganDiscovery.org/ (Hint: Select Projects on the left to find links to the Solar Calendar and Human Sundial pages)
Mount Logan Middle School Solar Calendar and Human Sundial Webpages (Hint: Select Sundial or Solar Calendar below the image.)
Mount Logan Discovery Solar Calendar
Mount Logan Discovery Human Sundial

Archeoastronomy in Stone, National Park Service,
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/archeoastronomy-in-stone.htm

Ancestral Puebloan Sun Calendars
https://www.nps.gov/media/video/view.htm%3Fid%3D4A2A3F5E-7710-4A87-BC20-A8E833CBCE17

Schaefer, Bradley E., Stamm, James, A Case Study of the Picture Rocks Sun Dagger, Pluss a Review of the Intentionality of Sun Daggers, https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2008/PictureRocks_Sundagger_JAHH.pdf

Friday Finishers: Logan landmark, The Herald Journal (HJNews), Jun 28, 2013,
https://www.hjnews.com/allaccess/friday-finishers-logan-landmark/article_7c9554ee-df82-11e2-b142-001a4bcf887a.html

Sundial Registry, Logan, UT Number 804, North American Sundial Society, https://sundials.org/index.php/component/sundials/onedial/804

Making an Analemmatic Sundial, North American Sundial Society, September 22, 2019, https://sundials.org/teachers-corner/sundial-construction/299-making-an-analemmatic-sundial.html

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Birds Foster Community Connections

Academic Focus in the Outdoors Courtesy & Copyright Joseph Kozlowski, Photographer
Academic Focus in the Outdoors
Courtesy & Copyright Joseph Kozlowski, Photographer
I don’t know why, but birds possess a special power to connect diverse communities. You see, birds don’t discriminate; they don’t care who you are, what you look like, where you live, or what you believe; they are always there to offer you their wonder, beauty, and interesting behaviors, so long as you are willing to be aware and curious of their presence; and that awareness seems to bring people and places together.

Three years ago when I first became interested in using Utah birds as a core theme for teaching my 2nd-graders at Utah State University’s Edith Bowen Laboratory School, I had no idea how it would revolutionize my teaching career and connect me and my students with so many different natural and human communities. Personally, I’ve formed connections with people and places I would have never expected, such as: the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Bridgerland Audubon Society, this Utah Public Radio community, various natural resource professors at USU, untold numbers of new beautiful outdoor locations around the state, and even various important state educational stakeholders. But beyond me, I’m most excited to see how an increased awareness of Utah birds has led to my students making connections in their own lives.

My students are starting to experience Utah’s nature community in a new and more powerful way. The main way? By becoming aware. I can’t emphasize enough the power I’ve seen in my students just becoming aware of the natural world around them. Their simple everyday routines become opportunities to notice something going on around them in nature. Something as routine as school recess can turn into an opportunity to notice interesting natural phenomena, for example when a student noticed a European Starling had borne through the school’s siding, created a nest, and had been returning over and over to feed her impatient chirping chicks; or when a hen Mallard had mistakenly laid her eggs in a nest next to the school’s air conditioning unit; or when students found a dead Black-Capped Chickadee who must have unfortunately collided with a school window.

Furthermore, my students leave class and become ambassadors for learning outside of the school walls. They make connections to learning at home and get involved in their local communities in new ways! I’ve had countless students convince their families to get outside and explore a new local nature area in search of birds; I’ve had students who ‘took their siblings on a birding outing right from their house to a nearby nature area to explore new birds’; and I’ve had students who convinced their family they just ‘had to go to Salt Lake City’s Tracy Aviary over spring break,’ to discover new birds. These examples epitomize how birds bridge connections between students’ home and school knowledge; bridge connections between my students and other people in their lives, and bridge connections between my students’ own lives and the natural environment around them.

This is Dr. Joseph Kozlowski, and I am wild about outdoor education in Utah!

Credits:

Images: Courtesy & Copyright Joseph Kozlowski, Photographer, Used by Permission
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright © Kevin Colver, https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections/kevin-colver and including contributions from Anderson, Howe, and Wakeman.
Text:     Joseph Kozlowski, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University https://edithbowen.usu.edu/
Additional Reading Links: Joseph Kozlowski & Lyle Bingham

Additional Reading:

Joseph (Joey) Kozlowski’s pieces on Wild About Utah:

The Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, https://www.fws.gov/refuge/bear-river-migratory-bird

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/

Tracy Aviary, https://tracyaviary.org/

Bridgerland Audubon Society, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Utah Public Radio, https://upr.org/

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John Muir Didn’t Wear Tevas

Three Teens Returning from the Wilderness Courtesy & Copyright Emma Mecham
Three Teens Returning from the Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Emma Mecham

Wasatch Rambling July 7, 1989 Dromedary Peak Summit Whitney Leary & Eric Newell Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell Wasatch Rambling July 7, 1989
Dromedary Peak Summit
Whitney Leary & Eric Newell
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Morning Light Big Cottonwood Canyon July 7, 1989 Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell Morning Light Big Cottonwood Canyon
July 7, 1989
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

My Journal, July 6, 1989 Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell My Journal, July 6, 1989
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

My Journal, July 7, 1989 Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell My Journal, July 7, 1989
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell

Our 15 year-old and two of her friends just returned from their first backpacking trip without adults. When she hatched the idea, my wife and I were supportive of this big voyage, knowing all the growth that happens when you venture out on our own into the wilds for the first time. We asked questions and provided all the support she and her friends asked for—but we didn’t overdo it. This was their adventure.

They were giddy as they shouldered their packs at the Logan Canyon trailhead and set foot towards a popular lake for two nights. When my wife picked them up three days later, they had stories to tell.

When they are old, like me, they won’t remember the TikTok videos or Instagram reels they might have watched during that span. But they will remember trying to stay warm in their hammocks, sleeping by a mountain lake under a trillion stars, the crispness of the air, and that feeling of being out there on their own and all the uncertainly and joy that goes with it.

When I was sixteen—after finishing another of John Muir’s many books, Wilderness Essays—I decided that if John Muir only took a loaf of bread, an overcoat, and a wool blanket with him into the Sierras, that I could do the same. Certainly John Muir wasn’t—to use a John Muir word—”hardier” than I was. This wasn’t my first backpacking trip without adults, but I learn my lessons the hard way. After all, good judgement comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgement.

So I took a wool blanket from the closet in the basement and left a perfectly good sleeping pad and twenty-degree sleeping bag at home. My friends and I only wore Teva sandals when we hiked or backpacked at the time and I didn’t pack any socks. It was July after all.

Now, I am certain John Muir did not wear Teva’s. He wore socks and boots—even in July. He also built big fires and cut pine-boughs for sleeping on that would insulate him from the cold ground. Wanting to leave no trace, I did neither of those things.

That was a rough night next to a lake in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Aside from shivering on cold, hard bedrock in the darkness, I was constantly under attack from swarms of mosquitos because I couldn’t fit both my head and my bare feet under the small blanket at the same time. I also learned that if you only eat a loaf of French Bread from the Albertsons bakery for dinner, you get a lot of gas.

It turns out John Muir was much “hardier” than I.

I got “out” of my wool blanket well before dawn that morning to move my body and warm up. I watched the light show on the 11,000 foot peaks above and the reflection in the dead-calm lake below.

After breakfast, I spotted a couple of mountain goats on a pass above the lake and we scrambled up to have a closer look. When we arrived at the saddle we decided that since we had come this far, we might as well continue on and figure out the tricky and exposed route to the summit of Dromedary Peak—in our Teva’s.
I’m glad my parents weren’t there to save me from my own naiveté.

It is often hard for parents to let go and give their teens the chance to venture out into Edward Abby’s “back of beyond” to be responsible for themselves and to learn from their own mistakes. But I’m glad my parents were willing, and I have found satisfaction supporting my children, and other people’s children, on their own adventures.
Edward Abbey said it well, “It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and…mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space.”

The average 18 year-old high school graduate today has spent approximately four-years of their lives on screens. Four years. Four years of childhood that they will never get back. Our children need wildness now, more than ever.

Maybe our public lands will save us from ourselves—if we don’t sell them off to the highest bidder.

I am Eric Newell, and I am wild about Utah and our wild public lands.

Credits:
Images: Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Featured Audio: Courtesy & © Shalayne Smith Needham & Courtesy & Copyright © Anderson, Howe, Wakeman
Text: Eric Newell, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University
Additional Reading: Eric Newell & Lyle Bingham

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah Pieces by Eric Newell