Soon after, buzzing turns to chatting and not far off chatting.įood Waste & The Clean Plate Club - Sam Farrellįood waste is one of the most important things students learn about here at High Trails, but it is also easy to overlook. Once inside the cabin, everyone shivers off their jackets and eagerly starts buzzing around the warm haven: home for the next three or four nights. Toothpaste: Show Don't Tell - Kelsey Wentling CREPUSCULAR LIFE PROFESSIONALThe Master's - Alex KaklamanosĪ master's degree is an advanced academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice. Want to join?Īt High Trails Outdoor Science School, we literally force our instructors to write about elementary outdoor education, teaching outside, learning outside, our dirty classroom (the forest…gosh), environmental science, outdoor science, and all other tree hugging student and kid loving things that keep us engaged, passionate, driven, loving our job, digging our life, and spreading the word to anyone whose attention we can hold for long enough to actually make it through reading this entire sentence. Instead of moving on, often my students simply want to explore further. They leave class with a heightened appreciation for the environment around them, understanding that Southern California’s unique environments of desert and mountains hide one of the largest concentrations of crepuscular animals. Having accomplished this feat, my students know that the night is not scary, and in fact is filled with interesting animals. My Nocturnal Nation class closes with the opportunity to walk a short distance in the woods without a flashlight. Low light also helps crepuscular animals such as mule deer hide from predators. For example, a mountain lion’s eyes are large with more rods than cones which allows this cat to see details in very low light. The vision of many crepuscular animals is adapted for low light levels. For many animals, such as snakes, cats, and rabbits, dusk and dawn provide a comfortable temperature between the extremes of day and night in which to hunt and forage. Desert areas can provide an even larger swing, called a diurnal temperature fluctuation. In environments like the arid San Bernardino Mountains, temperatures can swing between 80˚F during the day and 30˚F during the night. Whether animals live in developed urban regions or in undeveloped deserts, mountains, or scrubland, being crepuscular is an adaptation. Benefits of being CrepuscularĪn adaptation is some characteristic an organism uses to survive. 6An unknown number of native Southern Californian insects, including mosquitoes and moths, are crepuscular. 4 5Īmong reptiles, snakes are the most crepuscular (four species) while amphibians are rarely crepuscular. Outside of developed areas in Southern California, biologists have identified over thirty-three species of crepuscular mammals. One of the world’s highest concentrations of crepuscular animals live in southern Africa, India, and China. Globally, concentrations of crepuscular animals occur in only a few locations. Two crepuscular creatures, one feeding upon the other. An opposite activity pattern, active during the night, is called nocturnal. There are three vocabulary words at the heart of this concept that describe patterns of activity for animals.Īnimals, including humans, who are active in the daylight hours between dawn and dusk, are called diurnal. Biologists track these activity patterns, using them to categorize animals and better understand ecosystems. The class, Nocturnal Nation, is designed to empower students to begin overcoming fears of the night by learning more about it.īy the end of class, my students are able to review adaptations in nocturnal animals and how these differ for diurnal animals, but when I ask leading questions toward crepuscular, I inevitably receive confused stares from everyone.Īnimals often choose particular times of the day to be active – as an animal repeats the period of being awake and active over time, it creates an activity pattern. I ask this question to begin a class taught after sunset. “All right, ladies, what do you know about animals active in the night”?
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