The Impact of Tactile Education

I've posted a lot of photos about bones of late. Yesterday, we visited an entire elk skeleton. My daughter took some bones home and later I found this menagerie on the table. A day later, as we were walking with a friend's dog, out of the blue she asked me whether dogs have bones in their tails. We talked for a while, about spines and tailbones, then she asked me if we have bones in our tongues. This is exactly what I mean about outdoor education. It goes WAY beyond neato experiences in nature. The kinds of up-close and real encounters we have blend into our daily lives, our imaginations, informing the kids in ways I could never even dream up. I would never have thought about teaching my six-year-old about skeletal structure, but now she has a tactile, palpable feel for what it means.