THE 



NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



DEVOTED TO ALL PHASES OF NATURE-STUDY IN SCHOOLS 



Vol. 5 NOVEMBER, 1909 No. 8 



NATURE-STUDY IN CITY SUBURBS 



By F. L. HOLTZ 



Report of a committee of the New York City Section of the American 

 Nature-Study Society, F. L. Holtz, of BrookU^n Training School for 

 Teachers, chairman. 



The committee to consider the revision of the syllabus in 

 nature-study for the outer districts of this city bases its report 

 upon certain general considerations: 



It is a far cr\' from the nature-study environment of the lower 

 East Side to the rural scenes of Richmond, Queens, and the 

 Bronx. Obviously the children of these two sections must have 

 diverse interests in nature. Nature-study, pre-eminently, should 

 be adapted to the child's environment, that it may be upon an 

 observational basis and that it may find a logical application in 

 the child's life. One and the same course of nature-study cannot 

 serve the children of the paved tenement quarters and the rural 

 or semi-rural sections of our city. 



The teachers of nature-study have to depend upon themselves, 

 chiefly, for illustrative material. They should have the liberty 

 and convenience to gathei this material in their school locality. 

 Since regions differ greatly as to the kind and abundance of 

 material, the teachers should be given considerable latitude as 

 to the use of suitable substitutes for the prescribed kinds of illus- 

 trations. The success of a nature lesson depends very much upon 

 the interest and enthusiasm of the teacher. It stands to reason 

 that she can do better with easily obtainable and observable 

 material, for which the pupils have some a,pperceptive basis, than 

 with material on which she has to waste her enthusiasm in the 

 mere getting and which is foreign to the children. 



It is not intended to intimate that material should never be 

 chosen from outside of the child's immediate environment. 



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