TFN Juniors Fall Nature Club – Leaves!

Hi Everyone!

So excited to get started on our Nature Club this fall. Great to see familiar faces and meet new participants as well. Hope you all had fun–please forgive our technical glitches–things will get smoother as we go. 

Your challenge for this week is to collect colored leaves of many different shapes and sizes. We are planning to make leaf collages at our next session on Oct 7th. Please see the slideshow below for ideas of leaves you might use. If you want to make one of the exact creatures featured in the slideshow–have a close look and make sure you have all the leaves you need. Don’t worry about getting exactly the same leaf–just something of a similar shape and the right size. Remember you can also do an abstract work of art, or you can make a hasty note with a single stunning maple leaf!

When you get them home, pop your leaves into a book and pile some other heavy books on top–or you can use pieces of cardboard with bricks piled on top.  You will need to bring your leaves, white glue, and a piece of cardstock to the session next Wednesday. We will build our creatures together–and show them off at the end!

You may also wish to continue with your Journal entry on Sumac. The pictures we were working from are in the slideshow below.  We will also work further on this next week–so don’t worry about finishing it.

You can do the ‘chromatography’ or leaf color experiment yourself. This experiment allows us to see the yellow and orange pigments hidden under chlorophyll in green leaves. The only unusual ingredient you need is rubbing alcohol which is available at Shoppers Drug Mart.  Maybe you just want to tweak your drawing of our experimental set-up. You will notice I changed things a little, supporting the coffee filter strip on the pencil.

Be sure to join us next week with your Nature Journal, the leaves you collected and pressed, glue and a piece of cardstock.

Look forward to seeing you all Wednesday October 7 at 4:30pm!

Toronto Field Naturalists wishes to acknowledge this Land through which we walk. For thousands of years, the Land has been shared by the Wendat, the Haudenosaunee, and the Anishinaabe. Toronto is situated on the Land within the Toronto Purchase, Treaty 13, the traditional and treaty Lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. This territory is also part of the Dish with One Spoon Wampum, a covenant agreement between Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Wendat peoples and allied nations to peaceably share the land and all its resources. Today, the Land is home to peoples of numerous nations. We are all grateful to have the opportunity to continue to care for and share the beauty of this Land.