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Some Things I Believe In – Karen Luke Fildes

| Karen Luke Fildes

1. It’s this generation of children who are the hope, and they need to be properly trained to use their gifts to be the solution.

2. “Good behavior” never comes from shame but from falling in love with life.

3. A Living Catalogue will teach us to see and notice what’s alive in our inner worlds and to become compassionate stewards.

4. Each child has an authentic line, an individual voice, and preferences of seeing that will bring out their gifts for us, gracing us with their uniqueness.The Field Guide to the World will encourage personal expression while contributing to a better awareness of the natural world.

5. Good supplies matter and should be available to more than just the qualified only.

6. Art, science, and technology work as powerful portals for solutions when allowed to intermingle. A child’s imagination is sensitive to attach itself to early influences. If violence is the most readily available influence, the child will study violence. Nature is capable of providing intrigue and fascination to fuel even the hungriest imagination. Game developers need to consider this as they move forward in developing exciting games for children. Parents are hard-pressed to provide balanced, creative yet “innocent” options for their children. It’s hard to compete with the excitement that violence provides.

7. Researching “beyond google” is a skill that can turn a regular fourth grader into a force of nature. My husband has opened many young eyes to curiosities not readily available, and the librarians we have worked with have revealed tricks of the trade to many young detectives.

8. It’s about time that we listen to the indigenous voices of our lands. We’d like to use the Field Guide to the World to help children of our First Nations to teach us the living things and their attributes. We’d like to see the art and the story of life through the eyes of the children with the help and the wisdom of the elders.

9. We’d like children’s art and stories to be made available in trading cards and art prints to help pay for the cost of art supplies and teachers fees. I want to keep one of every trading card in my treasure box collection.

10. We want this next generation of Young Naturalists to start now.

It’s just the beginning…

| Karen Luke Fildes
The third graders of Chief Leschi School are teaching us the Salish names for the animals of their tribal lands. Go to the Field Guide Gallery and see the very beginning of what will become the Field Guide. These images are artistic interpretations of the animals from the Puyallup River Watershed.

With the first round of funding we will be able to build a real catalogue system with interactive capabilities and a smooth and gorgeous slide show style gallery. This takes a little expertise but we want their amazing works to be  It’s a way for students to share their personal work without ever giving out their names. Some students decide to take on an “artist name” for the sake of sharing. Each student has a different way of seeing and portraying their animal. Teachers can design their field guide emphasis choosing flora, algae, fauna currently in the region as well as the endangered and extinct animals. It will be exciting to see what the students have to teach us as they discover their research styles and learn to enjoy the process of “seeing with the pen”. The most important thing to learn to become a true ambassador is that “there are no mistakes in art.”

Take a sneak peak at some of the creations by our young Field Guide Ambassadors of the Puyallup Tribal Lands.

Gallery

Pink Salmon1web

It’s happening!

| David George Gordon

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Welcome to the promise of a wonderful new school year.

Wouldn’t you like to join us for the next phase of our adventure? Most recently, we took the lessons we learned from our Field Guide programs at international schools in Zurich and Zug, Switzerland, and brought them to the students of Chief Leschi School in western Washington state.

Here, a hundred third-graders from the Puyallup Indian Tribe helped us to see nature in new and exciting ways. By researching, writing and illustrating a Field Guide to Puyallup River Watershed, the students addressed the reality of loss and the possibility of renewal for the sake of positive change. They shared these important lessons with us— and with their parents, teachers, friends and other members of their community. You can see some examples of their writing and drawing on our website’s Gallery page. We are in the process of developing the gallery, so bare with us as we configure these wondrous works of art.

We’re now ready to bring what we’ve learned to other children in the Pacific Northwest and throughout the world. We look forward to more chances for the children to teach us. Through their eyes, we will again fall in love with the natural world.

It’s a lofty goal, to have children help us take an account of the living things in their parts of the world. Nonetheless, we need to start somewhere—and this website is a significant first step. We hope you enjoy it and will get in touch with us with your thoughts, wishes and suggestions for schools to work with in the months to come.

We believe that this is the finest generation that has ever come to the earth. Let’s give them the support they need as they turn their attentions away from video games, redirecting their energies to the wonders of nature in its rich and diverse forms.

David George Gordon