We kicked off the winter season in December with our first Nature Talk from Susie Fisher on ‘The History of Mennonites and Their Gardens.’ This was an excellent presentation highlighting how Mennonite settlers to Manitoba’s West Reserve connected with creation. We followed this up in January with a Nature Talk by Graham MacFarlane on ‘The Spiritual Discipline of Being Outside.’ During this talk we learned about how God can use creation to speak to us and heard several stories from participants who find spending time in creation to be an important piece of their devotional disciplines. In February Luc Blanchette gave a Nature Talk titled ‘A Bug’s Life: Insect Ecology 101.’ Luc taught us fascinating facts about insects and their importance in the world. We ended with a call to replace our fear of insects with fascination.
Throughout February we ran a five-week, outdoor after-school program called ‘Explore Outdoors’ in Morden Park. The weekly sessions gave students the chance to try out new winter activities such as snow shoeing, quinzee building and snow sculpting. Each activity came with a related lesson in winter ecology such as how animals travel through the snow, the types of animals that live in the ‘subnivean’ zone (under the snow), and how snow crystals form. The program was a huge success with students asking us to do it again next year.
