1/13/2021 | This resource was created by Von Scully and Kate Reilly.
January is the perfect time for new outdoor adventures and a refreshed sense of learning and discovery of our natural world. Need some inspiration to get started?
Thanks to the PreK to Grade 2 students at Weston Elementary School in Manville, New Jersey for sending along words to describe their visions of a winter experience at Duke Farms:
- Peaceful and calm
- Green… but also snowy
- Cold and “brrrr” - so be active!
- Glistening, glimmering, and bright
- Nature
- Life
- And most importantly - happy.
If you are still making the decision to go outside to explore, the winter world awaits your curiosity.
The change in temperature that winter brings is a natural phenomenon that usually brings the death of many individual organisms, allowing for a few healthy ones to continue reproducing during the warmer months. However, global warming is causing winters to be milder the usual. This lack of normal, severe freezing temperatures allows many more organisms to survive - more than what a healthy ecosystem can sustain. Once you add invasive species like spotted lanternfly into the mix, you get an adverse reaction. Since SLFs are from a warmer climate than that of northeastern North American, these milder winters allow enormous numbers of SLF to survive, reproduce, and hitchhike to wreak havoc into new areas.