It may seem difficult to find nature in the city. But with these eight ideas, you’ll be able to find nature anywhere you go!
Flipping over a rock, I ask my kids, “Do you think anyone’s here?”
Spotting a rather large spider scrambling towards my pants leg, I almost drop the rock on my foot. “Ah ah!” I yell and shake my leg. My two and four year old turn to look at me, wondering what on earth just happened. “I just… there was a big spider. Did you see it?”
Despite the spider, we weren’t in a nature preserve or large forest. Instead, we were in a grassy area right behind our house, with a road on one side and a graveyard on the other. Despite living in a semi-urban area, we regularly find ways to encounter nature. I truly believe that you can encounter nature almost anywhere, even in the most urban of locations.
Here are some of our favorite ways to find nature in the city and suburbs:
Check out trees and rocks
Nature finds a way, especially in the smallest places. In urban environments, creatures are often still there, but they’re hiding. Small holes or edges of bark in trees often host a variety of insects. The bark itself teems with details about the tree, whether it’s peeling or whole, oozing with sap or dry.
Similarly, insects and other animals often camp out under rocks, just waiting for you to flip them over. Look for large, flat(ish) rocks – those are the most likely to have the gaps between rock and dirt where creatures could live.
Respect the weeds
Plants in the city are often growing out of cracks in the sidewalk or buildings. While it’s easy to label these as “just weeds,” they offer an awesome opportunity to think about how nature functions. Most weeds are plants that are adapted to live in difficult conditions. They’re often the first plants in the scene after an ecological upheaval, like a flood or fire. They’re the pioneer plants that thrive where nothing else can, like on bare rock. By breaking up the rock or compacted soil, they allow other plants to grow in their wake. Looking at dandelions that way makes them seem much more dignified, doesn’t it?
For a lovely book about the natural beauty you can find in the city, I recommend Sidewalk Flowers. It’s a completely wordless picture book about a little girl and her dad’s walk home and what she notices and collects.
Look up!
The sky is nature! From almost anywhere, you can see clouds during the day and the moon at night.
Learn how to “read” clouds with your kids, identifying which types are which and what kind of weather they signal. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has a kid-friendly guide to the different types of clouds, complete with photos. You can even print out a cloud identification chart with a hole in the middle to look at a specific cloud. (My son’s preschool did these and they’re really neat.)
The night sky has plenty to tell us too. While city lights may block out the stars, the moon is almost always visible. This site has a nice walkthrough of the phases of the moon with great animations for kids. Learn about some of the special times involving the moon, like super moons and blood moons.
Check out unconventional spaces
Our cemetery is actually a great place for nature-spotting. Small rodents and deer love the grass, so we always have a parade of bunnies, squirrels, groundhogs and deer within easy spotting distance. It has several large, beautiful trees where animals often make their homes. Obviously, we are respectful and careful around the graves, but it’s a rather nice place for a walk. Other quirky places to find nature include the edges of playgrounds or the odd grassy areas outside of stores.
Grow plants on your deck or balcony
You can bring a little nature indoors or at least close to it if you grow plants in your house or apartment. Gardening Love has some great tips on growing plants indoors and in small spaces. While most houseplants are for aesthetics (and cleaning the air!), you can grow certain edible plants inside or on a very small space. Herbs, like thyme and rosemary, are particularly useful because you can just reach for them in the kitchen.
Do a scavenger hunt
Sometimes nature is all around us and we don’t even realize it. But once we start looking, we see it everywhere. Jenn at Take Them Outside has a scavenger hunt for urban areas. She also has five more great tips for helping kids experience nature in the city, including playing a nature-centric version of “I Spy.” (My kids love I Spy more than I could ever imagine, so I have to try this.)
Visit the “hidden gems”
Almost every city has hidden-away parks that offer adventure. In Washington D.C., we’re very lucky to have more than three in the form of national parks: Rock Creek Park, the C&O Canal and Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens. You don’t even need a car to get to them! All three are accessible by bike and Rock Creek Park is walking distance from multiple Metro stops.
Even If your city doesn’t have parks that are quite so prominent, there are probably some smaller places to explore. Look for creeks and other waterways on the map, as developers have strict restrictions about building on wetlands. Even my very suburban hometown has a number of trails; one area even has osprey nests. You would never know it from the road, but walk 15 minutes in and it’s there!
Join a group
If you have no idea where to start, join a group who does. I’ve heard excellent things about Hike It Baby groups, which has a searchable list of cities they have groups in. A number of cities also have Free Forest Schools, where families meet up for their kids to hang out in nature for a couple hours a week.
No matter how you do it, you too can find nature in the city. I hope that you don’t end up with spiders in your pants (thankfully, I didn’t), but that you do discover a little bit of beauty where you least expect it.
For more on getting outside with kids, check out What I Learned Camping with Two Kids. If you’re interested in environmental sustainability with your family, join our Green and Sustainable Parenting Facebook group!
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