Lessons Lurk Beneath The Pond’s Surface—

Enjoying Nature’s Lessons At Children’s Adventure Center

By Kendra Bobowick

“Here come the goldfish,” said Will Michael, immediately drawing a young audience to his feet.

Promptly children’s heads crowded around the open top of a bucket as they edged for space to see the bright orange fish circling in a bucket one Thursday morning at The Children’s Adventure Center in Sandy Hook.

A recent Western Connecticut State University graduate, Mr Michael of Bethel regularly brings a touch of nature to the preschool students.

The educational menu on March 23 served up slugs, larvae, goldfish, clusters of jellied salamander eggs clinging to a twig, and explanations of the creatures’ life cycles.

“Here are the salamander eggs,” Mr Michael said as he lifted the stick from another bucket filled halfway with water and leaves. The stick, about a foot long, was swallowed in a clear jelly sack filled with black specks the size of peppercorns. These specks would develop into salamanders, but for now clung to the stick like cotton candy.

“Mr Will,” as the children call him, said, “Everything wants to eat these eggs.”

A few concerned faces looked at him, as he reassured students that “salamanders know to go to ponds without fish because the fish will eat the eggs.”

Changing focus again, Mr Michael reached for the children’s attention with an adventure.

“Listen to this story,” he said. “When I was at the pond it was unusually quiet — like a mystery.”

Offering a few details, he explained, “The insects were gone and I couldn’t find anything.”

He described his search for the eggs as he hunted around the pond, and revealed the answers to the “mystery.”

“Then I found all the eggs and all the animals hiding next to the eggs,” he said. “They had moved from where I usually find them to where a tree had fallen. The eggs were attached to the tree branch.”

As the roughly ten children sat in a circle, Mr Michael moved his bucket of goldfish around the group.

“These came from the pond in my backyard,” he said. Another bucket contained the mass of salamander eggs, which he also showed to the group. Other children pushed to the center of their circle to look into a large glass jar containing a leach that had adhered itself to a leaf.

Minutes later Mr Michaels rolled his sleeve and reached into a bucket, lifting out his hand cupping a palmful of water. Reaching out to show the students, he uncurled his fingers to display a stone fly larva with legs bristling with movement.

“This one is hard to keep in my hand,” he said.

Indulging An Early Interest

Will Michaels’ attraction to science and nature started when he was about 12 during springtime drives through the rain.

“During rainy nights in spring we would drive to see the salamanders,” he said.

In his early teens Mr Michael and his parents annually observed the yellow spotted salamanders crawl to the ponds to lay eggs.

“They would only come out once a year, that’s why it was so special,” he said. The salamanders would come out to lay their eggs, Mr Michael said.

His story also has a second part, he said.

By age 16, he had contacted Hank Gruner at the Connecticut Science Center, and Michael Klemens at the New York Museum of Natural History, who was revising a book in progress.

“They came to Bethel to check on this vernal pool [where salamanders laid eggs],” he said. “There I was, a high school student, going with scientists to a place I had been frequently and I watched them work.”

He remembers the beginnings of a desire to combine his work with nature, as the scientists had done.

“I hoped it was something I could do,” he said. He now hopes to establish a career in science education.

Mr Michael, 23, a media arts major, graduated from Western Connecticut State University in January. He hosts a Charter public access program, The Naturalist, that airs on Wednesday evenings at 8:30 pm.

He hopes to establish a video production company to create educational videos for schools and libraries. He keeps grant money in mind to help support his efforts, and intends to apply for funding.

Children’s Adventure Center Director Rose Luizzi welcomes Mr Michael, and enjoys his participation as a nature consultant and part of the teaching staff. He visits weekly. The center enrolls students between ages 3 and 6 years old.