3rd June 2021
Numbers
Numbers are all around us! Whether you already love numbers or you still have some anxiety
left over from school math class, Finding numbers and patterns in nature
can become a joyful game for all of us.
Today we are going to play with numbers in our nature journal!
There will be two live workshops today to explore using numbers in our nature journals.
Please click the links below to learn more about each workshop.
Victoria Grape -
Creating an ecological calendar
John Muir Laws -
Using numbers in our nature journals
Nature journaling prompts and ideas
Measure - A little ruler tucked inside your nature journaling kit can be a great tool for adding numbers to your page. When you find a plant that you would like to sketch, also include its size by adding a measurement.
Add metadata - Metada is information added to the top of a nature journal page that sets the scene and records information about the moment. Much of the metatdata that we regularly add includes numbers. You might include the date, time, location (latitude and longitude are numbers that pinpoint your location on the globe), temperature, high and low tide information or the time of sunrise and sunset. All these numbers help build a bank of data that can be useful when looking back on your nature journal pages.
Count - Counting is a quick and easy way to use numbers in your nature journal. Counting can sometimes be an important tool for species identification. For example, you might add the number of petals you see on a flower. Some very similar species can be differentiated by the number of petals.
Estimate - Sometimes it can be difficult to count something because there are too many! For example, you might see a flock of birds which includes hundreds of individuals. In this situation we will try to estimate! Count a small section of the animals in one area and then count how many times this area fits into the whole. In the bird example, you might count 30 birds in an area and then estimate that that same area is covered 20 times by the entire flock. Therefore, 30 x 20 = 600, so you can estimate that you have seen a flock of 600 birds.
Graph/Chart - Data that you collect while in nature can be added to a graph or chart to visually display the information. Try creating a graph of the temperatures you experience during the month of June, or turn data you collected from plant observations into a stem and leaf plot. This can be so much fun and very educational for older children ready to explore numeracy.
Learn more
John Muir Laws’ series The Nature Journal Connection is a wonderful resource for learning how to use numbers in your nature journal. Here are several videos that will help you get started:
John Muir Laws has created a wonderful PDF of the Beaufort Wind Force Scale that you can paste into the back of your journal and use to estimate the force of the wind while you are journaling. Jose Sanz Garcia has also kindly translated the Beaufort Wind Force Scale into Spanish. You can download the Spanish PDF here.
A very important number we experience every day, and often record on our pages - temperature! Variations in temperature affect our climate, habitats and entire ecosystems, and have profound effects on how the organisms within them live. The UK Meteorological Office has a great explanation, here.
Time is another numerical issue we all include in our pages! Find out more about about sunrise, sunset and the solstices here.
How do you count the number of birds in a flock, fish in a shoal, or deer in a herd? This article explains some ways in which scientists count wildlife.
One of the most fundamental (and strikingly beautiful) ways these laws manifest is through the golden ratio. It's not hard to find examples of this logarithmic phenomenon in nature. Check out this fascinating article and begin to search for them ….
Mapping your position. Every location on earth has a global address in numbers, so whatever language we speak we can communicate about where we are. This video explains how it all works!