SAND Club Kicks off Hardwoods Study

The SAND Club will be studying the three major Minnesota biomes this year, in an effort to understand the Minnesota-area wilderness as experienced by the early explorers, voyageurs, and missionaries. In September and October, we will study the Hardwood Forest. We are using the Jr. Naturalist booklets put out by the DNR. We visited Fort Snelling State Park and the informative ranger took us on a walk through the forest, showing us a variety of interesting plants and trees. We collected leaves (with her permission!) and made leaf prints at the Nature Center. My favorite new critter is now the leaf miner, a small insect that burrows through leaves, leaving small tunnels behind. Very interesting!