This is a guest blog from Girl Scout Heather of Troop 3989 and Caitlin’s Outdoor Adventurers:

Last Sunday me and nine other girls got to go on a adventure! We’re lucky because thats what we get to do every Sunday; I’m a part of Caitlin’s Outdoor Adventurers. Recently we got to learn all about nature photography from Sue Cardaro. We even got to see some of her winning wildlife works of baby foxes and bumble bees. She also talked to us about how photography is her passion. After that we were all pumped and ready to go! In teams of three, armed with our cameras and observation sheets we went out exploring around Camp Ilchester on a mission to try to record every living thing and take some amazing photos.

The photography was a lot of fun and a nice learning experience. I had no idea what species the plants I found were, let alone their scientific name! But after we came back from taking pictures we got to figure all of that out. We uploaded all of the pictures each of us took on to iNaturalist and there we were able to recored all the data we found. I think we are going to use that app a lot in the future because its’ free and really easy to use–plus I cant wait to get more pictures at camp.

Going out in groups was a great idea because I got a chance to talk to the other girls and we worked like a team. We strategized which paths to take based off what we would find and got too close for comfort to some bees to get shots! My favorite part was trying to (unsuccessfully) stalk the deer, but  in our defense, we almost cornered them toward the end! It honestly was great just to get outside after a long school week and a ton of homework.

I can’t wait for next week! We plan to do fire building, make fire starters and learn outdoor cooking with box ovens. We are even going to be earning a step of the Cadette culinary badge by making a cultural food, Salvadorian Papoosa’s, in our box ovens while we cook some banana boats and Mexican smore’s in foil on the fire. I think it’s gonna be cool to see the younger girls build a fire for the first time! I’ve also never made a very good fire starter before, I hope I’ll get to see mine actually work.

We get to meet every Sunday from 5-8 which is really helpful cause it means we don’t have to attend every meeting and also we have time to do things like service projects. I’m excited to plan and see what else we do this year!

Sincerely,
Heather, One of Caitlin’s Outdoor Adventurers

View some of Heather’s photos below!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Caitlin’s Outdoor Adventurers is sponsored by Caitlin Dunbar Nature Center and the GSCM Outdoor Program Department and is for Girl Scout Cadettes, Seniors and Ambassadors, who love doing outdoor and high adventure activities.

For more information please contact Echo Reardanz at znadraer@yahoo.com!