KBS launches second chapter in nature journaling outreach experience
For the past three years, W.K. Kellogg Biological Station outreach staff and fellows have offered a program focused on nature journaling. First staged in spring 2020, the program originated as a series of online sessions that combined short ecology lessons with a guided exercise in sketching a different subject each week.
In late 2023, an article detailing the development and facilitation of the nature journaling course was featured in Art in the Plant Sciences, a special issue of the Plant Science Bulletin, which is published by the Botanical Society of America.
The article, titled “Nature Journaling: Sharing Perspectives Between Art and Science,” was written by Robin Waterman, Ph.D. student in the Conner Lab and EEB alumna Meredith Zettlemoyer, former graduate student at KBS, currently an assistant professor in the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of Montana; as well as Corinn Rutkoski, Misty Klotz and Taylor Scamehorn.
According to Klotz, “Corinn and Meredith played a critical role in creating the Blending Art and Science program in 2019 as part of their summer outreach fellowship, funded by the MSU Graduate School. Other amazing KBS graduate students involved in outreach also contributed to the program’s development and implementation.”
The benefits to be gleaned from nature journaling are abundant.
The next KBS nature journaling event, “Blending Art and Science: Turtles,” is a one-time, in-person workshop set for 6 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 23, in the W.K. Kellogg Bird Sanctuary Classroom. EEB member and digital fellow Ayley Shortridge, a graduate student in the Janzen Lab at KBS, will combine her love for art and science (and turtles!) for a foray into the world of turtle ecology.
Read the full story from KBS.
