Buddy Bison's Buzz - October 2011

Hey Kids,

October is one of my favorite months of the year! Everyone loves when the temperatures start to cool down and the leaves start to change colors – even bison like me! Don’t miss the opportunity to get outside and go on an adventure this month.

Do you want to see what other kids like you have been doing in the great outdoors? Visit Buddy Bison at www.buddybison.org, where you can see pictures and artwork, read stories, and learn more about the many different activities you can do in nature.

Once you get outside, tell me about your experience. Whatever nature inspires you to do, I want to hear about. But the first step is to go outside and have fun!

Happy adventuring,

Buddy Bison

Central Park School Climbs to the Top
Buddy Bison and the Central Park School for Children have already had some great adventures together! Central Park is a charter elementary school in Durham, North Carolina that participates in the Where’s Buddy Bison Been? program.

The 4th grade from Central Park journeyed to Hanging Rock State Park to dive deep into their study of North Carolina and rocks and minerals. The students scaled the namesake peak, wrote poems and drew the Piedmont landscape before descending. Once on flat ground they drew and measured local fauna and finished the day swimming in the lake built by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression.

New York Schools Attend the North Face Explore Your Parks Event

On October 8th two of our Buddy Bison schools in New York, Brooklyn Jesuit Prep and St. Ignatius Bronx School, participated in The North Face Explore Your Parks event held at Franklin D. Roosevelt State Park. National Park Trust is a partner for these events, which are occurring all over the country.  

Students and their parents had a wonderful time together, going on nature hikes and even spotting a pack of deer – which a few families had never seen before! The students also played disc golf, met with park naturalists, learned which items are necessary on a camping trip, and stopped by a fitness station run by Buddy Bison Ambassador Mark Jenkins.

You can use this tool provided by the North Face to locate a park near you!

Fun on Fossil Day
On October 12th, Students from Washington D.C. area schools Washington Jesuit Academy, Beauvoir School, Elsie Whitlow Stokes PCS, Phoebe Hearst Elementary, and Washington Latin PCS joined Buddy Bison on the National Mall for the 2nd Annual Fossil Day as part of Earth Science Week. In the shadow of the Washington Monument, these students rummaged through rocks looking for all kinds of fossils, from shells to shark teeth!

Park rangers and volunteers taught the students how to identify their findings and helped them analyze the skeletons of alligators and birds. They even had the chance to create their own miniature bird feeders by covering pinecones with nuts and honey. When it started to rain, the students escaped into the Museum of Natural History where they studied more skeletons and other ancient artifacts.

Click here to see more photos from the 2nd Annual National Fossil Day.

Beauvoir and Buddy Bison Visit Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens
The students at Beauvoir, the National Cathedral Elementary School are taking Buddy Bison on some incredible adventures. The second graders and Buddy visited the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens as part of their river and wetland study. They had a great time learning about the formation of the park’s marshy wetlands, as well as discovering more about the plants and animals that live there.

An Adventure on the Anacostia River
From October 25 – 29, Buddy Bison will join our Washington D.C. area Where’s Buddy Bison Been? schools for a canoe voyage down the Anacostia River. Hundreds of kids will participate in the event, learning about the amazing ecology of rivers, the importance of their protection, and how much fun you can have paddling down them!

If you aren’t one of the kids participating in this event, don’t worry, there is most likely a great body of water nearby for you to explore. Water covers over 70% of the earth’s surface, so no matter where you are you are never too far away.

Do you know where rivers come from? Do you know where they go? Click here to find out more about what makes up a river. Then go visit one! Make sure you bring Buddy along and send us some pictures of your trip!

Buddy Bison's Adventurer of the Month
Starting in November, NPT will recognize “Buddy Bison’s Adventurer of the Month” and “Buddy Bison’s Teacher of the Month” right here in Buddy Bison’s Buzz. This is your chance to nominate your friend, your teacher, or even yourself to be featured in the Buzz with a write up and a fun Q&A!

Please send in email submissions to adam@parktrust.org. In the submission, include a short paragraph or two describing how the person you have chosen has done something extraordinary either in the outdoors or inspired by nature. The most important thing – be creative! What makes this person a great adventurer or great teacher? What would Buddy Bison say about them?

Send in your submissions as soon as possible! Buddy is looking forward to reading them.

Finding Fall Foliage

October is the time to get out to your parks and see the leaves change colors. The best place to check out fall foliage is at one of our nation’s many parks. Click the link for a list of the best parks to look at the leaves, and find one near you. Then take your kids!

Before you head out, check out this cool map that will tell you exactly when the colors are their brightest in your area.

Writing a Prescription for More Parks

Washington D.C. area pediatrician Dr. Robert Zarr is working on taking a more targeted approach to getting our kids outdoors and keeping them healthy. With inactive lifestyles causing a myriad of problems for our youth, Dr. Zarr is working on a tool that will allow doctors to locate specific parks nearby their patients to increase the probability that they will be more active. To learn more click here.  

It’s Time to Accept Buddy’s Friend Request

National Park Trust has a new page on Facebook. Please “Like” us to stay current on all our happenings – facebook.com/
nationalparktrust

And you can follow us on twitter - @ParksAreYours

TEACHER'S CORNER
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to send in your submissions for Buddy Bison’s Adventurer and Teacher of the month. You can nominate one of your students, a fellow teacher, or yourself. Encourage your students to send in their own submissions – it would be a great writing activity. Write a short paragraph describing something extraordinary someone has done either outdoors or inspired by nature. Be creative! Send submissions to adam@parktrust.org.

Remember to take pictures of your students outdoors with Buddy Bison and send them in to NPT to be featured in the Buzz.