Many of us fear that we don't know enough about nature to be "nature educators." I hear it often when I am looking for volunteers to help out with a module. I think because I was a teacher, I don't worry about all that as much. I realized that I learned along with my students almost as much as I taught them... and there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, I believe that it nurtures the life long learning mentality in students that we want them to have.
For some reason many seem to worry when we are working with the kindergarten, I remind them that they are 5... and though they scare me a lot more than middle schooler's... I am fairly certain the depth to which we cover subjects is not too much for most of us when dealing with the younger ages.
This article: Turn Any Walk Into a Nature Walk the ideas are great. If you read this, you are mostly prompting kids to answer their own questions. Simple observation.
If we get too caught up in dumping information into their brains we loose sight of simple curiosity and creating the sense of wonder about the natural world in our children. If it is not their own, they won't own it.
If they walk and observe, their own curiosity will eventually grow large enough that they will seek out their own answers. In the age of infinite knowledge at our fingertips, we should feel comforted that if we simply encourage them to venture down that path, they will seek and find all the answers to their own questions.
In the mean time, don't be afraid to help out with those young ones. If worse comes to worse, you can always come up with your own answers.... as a comedian once told, when his daughter asked why the sky was blue, his response to his over inquisitive child was "because if it was green we wouldn't know where to stop mowing our lawns."
Take someone out and turn your walk into a "Nature Walk" start building that natural sense of wonder and curiosity, they will do the rest, and hey, you might learn something along the way!
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