Kelly Thomsen

David Haskell compares nature observations to breathing. 

“With the lungs, you have to both inhale and exhale in order to be healthy. The same is true for the mind,” the Sewanee professor of biology and environmental studies instructs his college students—including me. “We need a process of opening our senses and then of closing….We need both in order to have a well-oxygenated mind.”

When I took a class last year with Haskell, he assigned a semester-long project: Choose one spot on campus to observe and journal about it each week. At first, the assignment seemed vague and daunting. Few of us had  any idea where to start. But Haskell—who has authored two books, both based on year-long periods of observation—took us outside and led us in a sensory exercise. 

Read more at: https://www.outdoors.org/resources/amc-outdoors/outdoor-resources/how-to-keep-a-nature-journal.