WIZ kids – Wilderness Interface Zone

WIZ Kids: Nature photos by Elizabeth R.

For a larger view click on the photos.

Ancient chipmunk hole below the pin oak

This burrow has been used for many generations of chipmunks.

Early moonrise in my backyard

Taken in Pennsylvania

View of the Kiskiminetas River through a stand of trees, springtime

Taken in Pennsylvania

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Elizabeth is thirteen years old and enjoys writing and photography. Capturing the magic and beauty of nature is a talent she hopes to be able to expand to its fullest potential someday.

WIZ Kids: Floral Spring by Jenna

April’s beauty carries with it rain
Wet tear drops falling from the sky
Its premier today, showing up shy
Sliding into slits in buds
Mixing itself with different muds
Slipping down my forehead
Touching my eyelashes ahead
I close my eyes to nature’s gift
While they were closed I did drift
To the month of May’s sweet, sweet scent
To view flowers and green is where I went
With sunny skies and buzzing bees
And singing birds and a wispy breeze
The rays of sun warm my pale face
Everything holds its very own grace
The life, the energy, the colors oh my
Making you never want to say goodbye
Soon enough my eyes open slow
I can’t wait now for the plants to grow
May’s essence still with me in the gray
As I look into bliss and await tomorrow’s day

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Jenna is a rising 9th grader with a specialized track for Medical Services. Jenna hopes to study medicine and become a neurologist. In her spare time she enjoys volleyball, travel, photography and hanging out with her friends.

WIZ Kids: Why the Wind Blows Things Down by Virginia R.

Narrator: It was a sunny day in the town Pudding but no one could see it. There was a cloud in the way of the sun.

Boy: I can’t see anything!

The mayor: We must do something!

All: But what?

Town folks: Ask the king!

Mayor: Not the king!

Boy: That is a good idea.

Mayor: The king does not rule the skies.

Narrator: So, everybody thought €¦

Boy: We could ask the wind to blow the dark cloud away.

Town folks: Good idea!

Boy: Wind!

Wind: What.

Boy: Could you blow the cloud away?

Wind: If the king lets me blow down whatever I want.

Mayor: I’ll go ask the king.

Narrator: The mayor reluctantly goes to the king’s palace. He tells the king what the wind wants. The king agrees to the plan. So the wind blew the cloud away. But from that day on the wind blew things down.

End.

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Virginia is 10 yrs old and she wrote this for school. She likes reading. Her favorite thing to read is a series of books called Warriors, by Erin Hunter. She likes catching fireflies, too.

WIZ kids: Call for nature writing by children

School’s out €”at least for kids in my neighborhood. In theory, this means they’re outside more, turning over rocks, taking pictures of what they find with their camera phones, using their iPhones to run a quick Internet critter identification search, engaging in texting one-upmanship (bgz r gr8), so on and so forth.

Okay, maybe they’re not doing it like that. (But oh, what I could have and would have done with such technology in my wild child days!) In fact, maybe they’re not going out into the Mystery much at all, if Richard Louv’s book Last Child in the Woods gives an accurate account of how children and nature have fallen out of love. But there must be some kids still getting out there, developing lightning-fast reflexes from chasing lizards, solving the whole-body puzzle of climbing a tree, honing their future driving skills by walking on logs across creeks, etc.

It’s in the hope that nature children still exist somewhere that Wilderness Interface Zone is issuing a call for nature poems and short essays written by children. The works may address any aspect of nature and the child’s relationship to it. Poems should be 50 lines or under and essays 150-1000 words. If you have a budding nature photojournalist in your family, we will consider posting his or her photos. Children ages 6-18 are invited to submit work to pk.wizadmin@gmail.com from July 6, 2010 to July 31, 2010. Depending on how many submissions we get, we’ll post them in batches off and on July-August. Parents and kids: Please review submission guidelines here before submitting.