Natural History Collector: Hunt, Discover, Learn!

Loaded with hands-on, kid-friendly projects, Natural History Collector: Hunt, Discover, Learn! will teach young nature collectors techniques for cleaning, caring for, and displaying their discoveries.

Coming home from the beach or a walk in the woods with an interesting collection of insects, rocks, shells, pine cones, and seed pods is easy. The trick is knowing what to do with them after you get them home. Half the fun comes from identifying, preserving, and displaying your collection!

The book is full of projects for the budding naturalist. The opening chapter introduces kids to different ways of creating their personal field guides for keeping track of what they see, when and where they see it, and what makes it interesting. They’ll move on to techniques for cleaning and caring for what they’ve collected.

The book’s many drawings and photographs will help kids discover what to look for when they examine feathers, seeds, and minerals (and recognize the difference between sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks). Additional projects focus on display – making shadow boxes, creating collectors’ cases from egg cartons and candy boxes, labeling, hanging, and mounting collections.

2019, 128 pages, paperback; 8½ x 10”.

About the author – Michael Sanchez is an educator at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque. He became interested in nature, “bugs”, seashells, and dinosaurs at an early age and went on to get a degree in biological anthropology from the University of New Mexico. Mike loves to share his passion for the wonders of nature with people of all ages.