The Big Picture

The following describes a spontaneous lecture/lesson I gave on a Chrysalis field trip that I liked because it illustrates the meta-lesson power nature study can contain. We were on an end-of-the-school-year camping trip at Medicine Lake which is a lake within the caldera of a massive shield volcano. The volcano is so large that when one is playing beside the lake, it is difficult to have any awareness that one is within a volcano. This particular morning, we had taken the kids up onto the rim of the caldera. From there they could see the bigger geological structure and how the lake nestled within the lowest point of this broad caldera, the rest of which was covered with trees or lava flows. Then we left the caldera to visit other geological features.

We stopped at a small lake. It was while we were at this lake that I noticed something which led me to call the students and parents together beside the lake to give a short lesson which went something like this.

“Kids, I want to give you a lesson in something we call the Big Picture. How many of you noticed signs that told you that this lake was bigger a few weeks ago? (All their hands went up because there was a ring of pollen several feet higher and many tens of yards away from the current shoreline. The Chrysalis kids are getting very good at noticing and understanding the meaning of such signs.) And how many of you noticed all of the tadpoles within the lake? (Again all of the hands went up because the tadpoles were abundant and several kids had been engaged in trying to catch them.)

“Now, I want to show you something.” I walked them to a tiny pool two feet across that was 10 yards from the shoreline. There were about 20 tadpoles swimming in the pool. “When the water was as high as the ring of pollen, this tiny pool was part of the lake. But as the lake level dropped, these tadpoles became cut off from the main lake. Now I want to show you what is going to happen to these tadpoles within a few days.” I then led the group to another tiny pool I had discovered. This pool was a bit further from the shoreline and was now only a few inches across. There were about 10 dead tadpoles in the pool.

“What happened here?” The kids could see that the tadpoles had become trapped in a pool that had dried up to the point where the tadpoles had died. “We people standing here can see the big lake over there and see these tiny pools around it and understand the process by which these tadpoles became trapped. We can see the big picture. These tadpoles could not see the big picture. They could just see the water right around them. We can see where they should have gone. Being able to see the big picture can help one survive, can help one act more wisely.

“This morning when we walked up onto the rim, you were able to see the big volcano. You got to see the bigger picture that the lake and our campground fit within. Before then, we were like the tadpoles, unable to see how the world right around us fit into something bigger. I want these tadpoles to remind you that you are always surrounded by things bigger than you can see right around you and that learning to see that bigger picture can help you live a better life.”

One of the spontaneous consequences of this lesson is that several children then spent the next ten minutes walking around the lake looking for pool-stranded tadpoles and transferring them to the lake.

Not everyone understood this lesson, especially the younger children. But the lesson will be repeated with other examples. Meta-lessons require many examples before they take on the true proportions of meta-lessons. The power of nature study is that it brings people into repeated contacts with specific examples of such lessons.