Here at the Mountain Park Environmental Center, we have just begun our 4th Earth Studies session with 5th graders from District 60 schools. This session is all about mammals and tracking, and is one of the most popular with the staff as well as the students. We teach the children about mammals that are common up here at Pueblo Mountain Park including bear, bobcat and fox; having them study the skulls, skins and prints of each one. This generates much enthusiasm from the group as they examine the teeth of each skull and the paws and claws of each track. Then each 5th grader gets to learn the basics of tracking before going out into the forest and looking for animal sign themselves. Once out in the park, every animal track and pile of scat hold new interest for the students as they search the ground, excitedly letting everyone know when they can identify a track with their new skills. They get to follow animal trails, look for deer beds, see the carcasses from an animal’s recent kill, and hopefully see some of the mammals that they just learned about out in their natural habitat.

Some other important topics that are taught and opened to discussion are food chains, extinction, extirpation and restoration of a species (specifically talking about the wolf in Colorado). Discussions like these are vital to children learning about their planet and becoming aware of the important environmental issues that are taking place all around them. This also helps to fulfill MPEC’s goal of instilling understanding and respect for the natural world into its citizens.

For many years, I have been measuring and submitting to NOAA the amount of precipitation that falls on Pueblo Mountain Park every day.   It has been a pretty boring job over the past many months with the lingering drought. But we did see a total of around a foot and a half of snow fall on the park in December, and a dusting the last couple of days. When I left my home this morning, with the intent of measuring the snow, the thermometer read 1F. Although we hadn’t received and new snow in the last 24 hours, I still needed to measure what the depth of the snow on the ground. I snapped a quick photo of the park’s “weather station,” then measured 5″ of snow on the ground. The lingering cold temps has the snows of December sticking around…I hope we get some more soon so I can strap on some snowshoes or skis and enjoy this winter wonderland!

I wrote in my journal two days ago: “The pond has been trying to become fully ‘frozen’ for several weeks now. Since the second week of November, there has been a back and forth between being rather frozen solid and then melting — sometimes just at the edges, sometimes much of it open water. As November wore on, more and more of the southern part of the pond has remained solid, with the melt/freeze occurring on a smaller and smaller portion of the northern half. It was colder last night (low 20s) and today was cooler — more seasonal — than the ridiculously warm days and nights of late. So, right now, the pond appears to be fully frozen, and just may stay that way for the rest of the winter.” Well, not yet. I just walked down to the pond, and there’s still plenty of unfrozen water all over the pond. The last couple of days have warmed up enough to prevent the ice from being solidly in control. The projection for some cold temps and hopefully some snow this weekend may further the pond’s frozen state…and make it look and feel more like it is actually December in Colorado. I’ve been monitoring the pond’s official frozen date for many years, and this is by far the latest for that cold event (and it’s still not there yet).