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 anima

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

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 anima