Illustration by Victoria Borges
The Flat Earth movement is having its minute. Have you noticed? I’ll leave it to Neil deGrasse Tyson to explain the calculus and non-Euclidian geometry behind why it ain’t flat, but it’s part of a bigger problem: anti-intellectualism. As a grownup, my countermeasures for this insidious trend have included forming a gathering of friends for thinking and tinkering with ideas. We’ve met twice this year, and already I’m more enlightened.
As a parent, my countermeasures include a telescope, a microscope, and binoculars. Having grown up in asphalted suburbs outside New York City, we weren’t engaged with our natural environment in quite the same way that, say, an ice-fishing Minnesotan or rockhounding Montanan might be. I didn’t learn the names of the trees, the calls of songbirds or identification of edible lichen. I’m a city cat, as are my kids; so who needs that stuff, right? As I write this, the windows are open and the forecast is calling for a high of 77. It’s February. Climate change means world change, and we’ve got to equip children with knowledge that will help them understand, cope and adapt. Mastering the environment directly out the back door is a fine place to begin. I missed my chance in New Jersey, but kids around the 804 ought to have a working vocabulary of Virginia’s flora, fauna and other natural wonders.
In 2012, the 1,554-page “Flora of Virginia” was published, a replacement for the “Flora Virginica,” which was first published in 1762. It took 11 years and a fundraising campaign to cover costs for the new work.
In lieu of lugging this tome into the field, there’s an app (Android | iOs) that makes it a cinch for kids to put their devices to educational use. Every parent faces the teens-and-screens battle, but kids huddled around close-ups of Aconitum uncinatum (blue monkshood) or videos of Halyomorpha halys (that’s “stink bug” to you and me) is a fine compromise. Armed with a digital, flip-view, handheld microscope, our crew has dived into the dirt with a science-friendly mashup of curiosity and Instagrammability. And we even identified two non-native flowering plants in our yard: Lamium purpureum (purple deadnettle) and Lonicera japonica Thunberg (Japanese honeysuckle).
But nothing has shifted our family’s love of science and nature quite like 8X42 binoculars and a smart telescope.
By day, we spotted red-tailed hawks, turkey vultures, and ruby crowned kinglets that flitted about our trees. The binoculars, paired smartly with Google Maps, have also enhanced the children’s sense of local geography and topography as we identified miles-away landmarks and features from our terrace.
By night, we marveled over the orange glow of Betelgeuse, Orion’s wispy nebula, craggy edges of a waning gibbous, and the we-are-so-small humility inspired by Jupiter and three moons. The smart telescope’s Wi-Fi connectivity allowed us to explore the constellations and their stories while becoming acutely aware of the Earth’s rotation, cloud and climate variation, phases of the moon, and the modern plight of light pollution. Fact: while star-gazing is a great excuse to stay up late, even teenagers will crawl out of bed pre-dawn to witness a trine of planets.
Living along the Church Hill fringe of Chimborazo Park and Gillies Creek, Mother Nature abounds, but even apartment-dwelling Richmonders have bounty within easy reach. Friends of the James River Park offers Science in the Park programs, and Maymont host an annual Family Camp-Out: A Night Under the Stars. And if you want to trek deeper into the wild beyond, REI offers classes in its Short Pump store that cover backpacking and all sorts of outdoorsmanship that you probably didn’t learn in Cub Scouts.
No matter how you get your dose of nature, though, natural medicine isn’t only in a pill, it’s in the thrill of being wowed, the bonding experience of family discovery, and in the micro- and macro-awareness of our neighborhood earth. Dirt don’t hurt. Go get into some.
Buckle up. Jason Tesauro, writer, speaker, sommelier — and modern papa to a five-some under 15 — invites you to ride shotgun as he hurtles through life at the speed of love/chaos/adventure in this column.
