Last week Coastside Land Trust's Junior Land Stewards Program Manager, Haley Peterson, was invited to serve as a guest lecturer at the local Coastside Heal Farm youth camp. Haley shared the nature journaling techniques that she uses with the Junior Land Stewards students during the school year.

Nature journaling is a technique that involves observing and recording the natural world through writing, sketching, and painting. John Muir Laws, a principal leader and innovator of the worldwide nature journaling movement, shares that keeping an illustrated, observational journal is a centuries-old method that has been refined through the lens of our understanding of neuroscience and deliberate practice. A nature journal is a lens that focuses our attention and crystalizes our observations, thoughts, and experiences.

Students loved practicing these techniques through a My Secret Leaf activity, in which students are challenged to pay attention to the details of their classmates/ campmates drawings to match them with the leaves of study.

Coastside Land Trust was delighted to share these practices with Heal Farm, collaborating in nature education for our Coastside youth. This partnership highlights our shared commitment to nurturing environmental stewardship in the next generation.