educational tools
habitat hunt cards
Focus! Sometimes it's hard to get kids to see something in nature. Sometimes they can't focus. Sometimes they are overwhelmed. Sometimes they just miss cool stuff because they don't know where to look. These cards help them discover cool things for themselves. Check out the front and back of one card here. Contact me for more samples or to talk about making a site-specific set for your wild area.
wolf spider egg with egg sac
This wolf spider lays its small yellow pom pom eggs into its egg sac and attaches the sac to its abdomen. After dragging the sac around for awhile, the eggs hatch and spiderlings crawl out of the sac and climb onto the mother spider's back. Great for demonstration or learning center.
giant leaves 
Kids can fall asleep in a pile of these colorful fall leaves! The leaves also provide great places to hide over-sized insect puppets and snug "blankets" for little "chipmunks" to take to their burrows. Little pieces of brown leaves and leaves with holes help to spark conversation about decomposition. And, of course, the next step is to head outside and look for leaves that are fresh and leaves that are falling apart.
Of course, no pile of huge fake leaves is complete without a huge fake acorn!
salamander room
Ann Mercer's story comes to life when the kids use pieces of fabric, soft-scupture props, animal replicas, leaves, and "water" to transform Brian's bedroom into a home for a salamander.
soft-sculpture freshwater mussel
One January day, my daughter came home and found me dissecting a pocketbook mussel at the kitchen table. I'm hoping there is no lasting trauma. Jeff Janvrin and Kurt Welke were looking for a way to help people understand the fascinating lives of mussels. Thus began a quest to create an anatomically correct mussel complete with marsupium, gills, blister pearls, fish lure, and glochidia. I made my husband's 3-piece suit for our wedding, but I think sewing these mussels was my crowning achievement as a seamstress!
designer fish
Fish have amazing adaptations, and these fish allow kids to experiment with moveable bodies, heads, tails, and fins to create extreme fish.
emerald ash borer costume
A menacing green insect who gives a frightening acceptance speech at the Victor's, an annual ceremony to honor the most successful plants and animals of North America. Click to see a photo of the simple emerald green taffeta cape and headpiece. Read a sample script.
hydrilla costume
An excited botanist who discovers an amazing aquatic plant equipped with everything it needs to take over the lake. Photo of Adam wearing the costume and a sample script.
