I recently took Grantham Elementary students outside to investigate the phenomenon of hibernation. Each child had a grape that they needed to keep warm and safe from freezing for 25 minutes outside. They could bury it in snow, put it in a crevice in a tree, or even keep it on their person. After the 25 minutes of grape hibernation, they came back to find most of them frozen! Now, we know that grapes and animals are very different, but it does beg the question, What do animals do to prepare for hibernation and where do they go to make sure they are warm and safe all winter long? In a previous naturalist notes, we learned that many insects produce antifreeze in their cells in winter and burr
How do insects survive the winter? With so many types of insects living in New England,you can imagine there are many strategies for survival. Migration, hibernation, diapause, staying active, going underground, producing "antifreeze", actually freezing, and burrowing into a nice log or tree are just some of them. I'm going to focus on the wood burrowers here, because I live in a log cabin myself. I can tell you that it heats up nicely when there is a source of heat, but if there is even a small crack in the wall to the outside world, I can feel it. So how do small creatures like insects who get their heat from their surroundings survive subfreezing temperatures in downed logs? I tried to
Afterschool programs are a great way to get kids outdoors exploring the world around them. Especially in winter! A little patch of woods becomes a whole new world when it is covered in snow and tiny footprints. And since kids usually have snow clothes for recess, they are ready to go outside anytime. This January, Dawn took some of Grantham Village School's K-3 grade students out into the forest once a week to explore the winter world. They discovered how plants and animals survive cold New England winters. They tasted the Vitamin C that builds up in conifer needles, compared the bark on trees to their winter coats, followed animal tracks off the trail and sometimes right up to their hom
