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WCNC 2023 NEWSLETTER # 1



This session we focused on the Animal Kingdom. It was a wet and wild kick off to 2023!


ANNADEL PARK, JANUARY 17

We visited our newt friends up at Frog Pond and found them happily breeding and laying eggs in the pond. We noticed that the signage we had made the year before in partnership with the parks had been put out again this year to educate visitors on the sensitive nature of the habit and the importance of protect it.





PETALUMA WILDLIFE MUSEUM, JANUARY 24

We kicked off our Animal Study this session with a visit to the Petaluma Wildlife Museum. This place is impressive, and is organized and run by the high school students themselves! They have quite a large collection of taxidermy animals from all over the world. We even got to meet a real live chinchilla!





BODEGA HEAD, JANUARY 31

This day we were scientist and learned about Taxonomy. We then went out into the field to find different living organism (animal cards hidden in the playing field) and in our groups tried our best to organize them into their scientific names. We also enjoyed the wide open views of our beautiful Sonoma Coast.




LAGUNA DE SANTA ROSA, FEBRUARY 7

We love visiting our Laguna watershed this time of year. It's fun to marvel at this landscapes function as a catchment for all the winter rains each year.




CRANE CREEK, FEBRUARY 14

Inspired by "Love Day", we made heart wands! The day turned out to be windier than expected so we found some shelter from the wind and hunkered down here for most of the day. We tried to find Jenny hidden in her camouflage!





RAGLE RANCH PARK, FEBRUARY 21

Its always fun to find new areas to explore here at our beloved local park. It was a nice day for another drawing lesson with Emma.





DORAN BIRD WALK, FEBRUARY 28

It was a beautiful day at the coast. We never made it out to the beach this time as we were too busy playing one of our favorite games, "Tunnel of Silence" on the narrow bridge that leads to the trail to Doran beach. This game really tests the kids comfort level by taking away their most dominant sense, as they must spend long periods of time blindfolded while their friends try to quietly sneak by them to make it to the other side of the bridge. Not everyone likes to be blindfolded but it's cool to see the kids summoning their courage and taking a turn blindfolded to allow all the kids to have a turn at sneaking through the Tunnel. The blindfolded kids quickly realize that their other senses also serve them quite well to detect anyone trying to sneak by, and its a nice chance to practice using them !