Video
Junior Ranger Series: Exploring Nature in Your Back Yard
Transcript
Hi everyone. My name is Emily Avery and I am one of the rangers here at Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. Today we have our second series in the Junior Ranger program for the year. Now if you did miss the first one, it is still available to be viewed online on our park website or Facebook page, but we are doing the second one and today we're going to be exploring nature in your own backyard. And so remember I did say this in the first video but this is still true: there will be four of these Junior Ranger programs this year. If you participate in three out of the four of them, you will earn a special Junior Ranger award and I'll tell you more about that at the end of the program today.
So we are talking about the nature the natural resources in our park. Today we will also be talking a little bit about the history and about how the nature and the history kind of work together. I'm sure for the past year a lot of us have maybe been getting outside a little bit more. Since we've been doing school from home, we haven't been able to do the things that we've normally gotten to do. And so hopefully we've been able to get out and explore, and we've been able to enjoy the beauty of nature, the greenery, the things that are blooming. And it's also really good for our mental health. It's good for us to get out and breathe air and this outside fresh air get some exercise and just kind of get out of the house for a little bit. Now the cool thing about today is we're going to be talking specifically about some types of plants that live here at the battlefield, that are native to this area. And so if you live in this Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama area they're also native to where you live. And as we learn more about the nature around us, just like as we learn more about the history around us and the history of our park, it helps us to appreciate it even more. And so that's what we're going to be doing.
So speaking of the history, right now I'm standing here in front of the Cravens' House. So it's that white house right behind me. And so the Cravens lived here before and during the war and on November 24, 1863 the Battle of Lookout Mountain is going to bring fighting right to this place. Now like I said, the Cravens were a family that lived here and before the battle they actually had an orchard. They had an orchard of different fruit trees. So maybe you've been apple picking, or maybe you went peach picking with your family, that's like the type of trees they had right here. And they had these trees, they helped provide them with food. And we're actually standing kind of in the middle of where their orchard would have been. and so the orchard would have been in this area. It also would have been over here kind of down and into the next wide open space that you're going to have to trust me is kind of over these brambles here.
And of course you'll notice there aren't any fruit trees here anymore. And that's an example of how nature changes over time; there's different vegetation different types of trees that grow in this place than could have grown or did grow back during the Civil War or even earlier than that. And so even that's a way that nature and history can interact, as we learn more about the history of a place the nature can help us understand how things change or how the people had to adapt to that nature- this area and how they interacted with it. We're going to talk even more about that in a little bit.
Let's talk about something that actually grows here right now. At the beginning of the video you saw and you might be able to see right now, there's a lot of these little light pink flowers on the ground. Now those flowers have a name they're called Spring Beauty and they bloom very early in the spring. And I'm going to show you a picture of what they look like up close. So these little light pink flowers are a native species to Tennessee. And native means that they have been in this place they've been a part of the ecosystem, which is a fancy word for the plants and living organisms that are in a place and have been part of a place and are kind of all interrelated. These flowers have been part of this ecosystem, they're native plants to this area and they have a pretty cool distinguishing characteristic. If you look at the picture the little petals actually have stripes on them. And so a fun way to identify this flower if you're going out to look for them is to look for those stripes. And it's kind of funny if you think about the stripes almost being like little landing strips for the insects that come to gather the pollen from those flowers. These are a big pollinator, which means again they're really unique they fill a specific role in this ecosystem.
What we're going to do now is we're actually going to get out on the trail system. And so as we go and if you decide you'd like to come to the park and hike and get outdoors. It's a great way to have some fun and to enjoy the natural resources at our park. But of course when you come hiking it's always good to remember a few things. You want to make sure you're paying attention to the weather you want to make sure you're aware of your surroundings so that you're safe. You want to make sure that you're wearing good shoes the right shoes and the right clothes and it is very helpful to take a map with you. We'll be looking at the map as we go so we can see exactly where we are. So we're going to go ahead and hop on these trails and I will see you in just a few minutes.
All right guys, welcome back. So really quick on the trail map, you're going to see where we are. We didn't actually go that far; we're right behind the Cravens House. And so we are standing right here. And you can see behind me there are these trees and they're covered with ivy. Now we just talked about a native species, we talked about Spring Beauty. But sometimes what will happen is we'll get native species, but they can become what we call invasive. And sometimes species that aren't native will also become invasive because what invasive means is that there's a species of plant and it grows really fast and it grows over the other plants and it chokes them out. And so this invasive species as you can see they're growing over the trees. And I mean, if you imagine if you were a plant how would you feel if another plant tried to kind of grow over you? Probably wouldn't feel very good. And we have a lot of invasive species in the area in addition to ivy. We have Kudzu. We have Chinese Privet. And believe it or not, even Honeysuckle is an invasive species, which is kind of surprising right? Because some of you may know, Honeysuckle smells so good. Honeysuckle is a plant- I like Honeysuckle- I'm sure some of you do too, but just because a plant is something that we like or something that smells good or maybe it looks good doesn't necessarily mean it is good for the ecosystem. And so these invasive plants are a problem, they mess with that balance of all the other plants, and the Spring Beauty that we talked about and some of the other ones we're going to be talking about too.
Now here's the thing though, there is another threat to the ecosystem that exists around here, you ready? It's us. So we as humans, as we get out in nature and hike on the trails, we have to be really careful that we're respecting the land, that we're respecting nature. We as humans are a leading cause of ecosystems deteriorating. And so if we do go hiking or if we go out and explore, which because we're kind of a threat to these ecosystems does that mean we shouldn't get out and about and explore? Of course not. But what it does mean, again, we have to be respectful of nature. And so we do our best to leave no trace. We do our best. Again, we don't want to leave litter on the trail, we don't want to leave any trash, we also really don't want to pick wildflowers. They might be really pretty, but then that means that the person that comes behind us isn't going to be able to enjoy it. And so we want to leave nature as we found it. We can observe it. We can enjoy it from a distance, but we want to make sure that we try not to disturb it as much as possible so the people that come behind us, the people that come hiking behind us, can enjoy nature just as much as we do.
Now there are some really cool plants right here that I want to point out to you. And so if you come over here and look, we have these plants right here. And you'll notice their leaves are two different shades of green, they're two tone. Which is kind of cool. There are three of them, and you'll notice you may be able to see that there are multiple little growths of them here. These plants are called Trillium. Now Trillium is special because it is what we call endemic to this area. Endemic means that it's pretty easy to find where we are right now, again in this Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama area. But actually if you find it anywhere else, it's very rare. You also might have noticed that we do have a stalk right here in the middle of this growth, this little piece. And that's actually going to be a really pretty flower. And so just like our Spring Beauties, Trillium actually bloom. They bloom in the early spring.
Another plant that's growing right next to the Trillium is this one right here. This plant is called a Christmas Fern. Now a fern is a unique type of plant because when it reproduces, when it grows and moves other places, instead of doing that with a seed, which I'm sure you guys have planted seeds, you know what seeds look like, they actually reproduce with spores. So that's very unique to ferns. And this Christmas Fern, the way we can identify the Christmas Fern is going to be by the shape of the leaf. And so the shape of this leaf is going to be kind of like a boot: it comes around and then it has a notch on the bottom. So the Trillium we were able to identify by how many leaves and the color. The Christmas Fern we can identify by the shape. Every plant has its own unique characteristics that we can use when we're in nature to identify them. And so we're going to identify even a few more plants as we continue to go hiking. We're going to head on a little bit further on this trail behind me and we're going to stop and we're going to see some other places that nature and history actually interact. So let's go check that out.
All right everybody, welcome back. We have moved further down on our trail. We're actually on the Rifle Pits Trail now on Lookout Mountain. And so we started at Cravens House, we moved behind Cravens House, and now we walked down the Rifle Pits Trail and we are here. And you can see behind me there's a sign. And this sign says "Heavy Slashings of Timber Outside of Works." So we're on the Rifle Pits Trail, it's named for the rifle pits. These works that are here that you see that extend both sides of me, it goes all the way down this way as well. So these works are going to be put here, they're made by the Confederate soldiers who are on Lookout Mountain during the siege of Chattanooga. So in October and November of 1863 right up until the battle on November 24th, there are going to be Confederate soldiers here, they're going to be defending the mountain. And so they are going to use the nature the natural resources to build these fortifications, to build these works to help protect them. So obviously they're changing the nature of this mountain dramatically not to mention that sign says "Heavy Slashings of Timber." Timber is wood, the trees. They're going to be chopping down a lot of trees around here.
Now speaking of these trees, if you look around you will notice they don't have their leaves. Trees that they change their leaf colors in the fall, and then they lose their leaves, and then the leaves will come back in another few weeks in the Spring, these are called deciduous trees. And so you'll notice there are quite a few of those around here. The other type of tree is going to be a coniferous tree. And so coniferous trees stay green all year round, and a lot of you actually already know what a type of coniferous tree looks like if you think about Christmas trees. Those evergreens are coniferous. Think about it, they stay green, they're green when it's winter in Christmas time. So these two types of trees are going to be found in nature. I bet if you go out into your backyard or if you live kind of and you don't have a backyard, you can come to the park, and you can spot these two different types of trees depending on if they have leaves or not. Or if you come later in the spring if they kind of look more like that Christmas tree, or if they look kind of like these, like they're just growing new leaves. So that's pretty cool. We're going to go to one final stop in a moment, and we're going to check out one other location where history and nature interact. And so we're actually going back, we're going to double back and go back towards the end of the battle. So this is where the beginning starts, the Union soldiers on November 24th are going to be coming from this direction on Lookout Mountain towards the Confederates. And they're going to be fighting, they're going to go back past Cravens House, like I said, and they're going to end up where we are going to hike to in a moment. And we're going to talk about more of that history and nature and we're actually going to identify a few more plants. So come on back and I will see you in a few minutes
All right everyone, welcome back. Again we have moved to another location on the trail system on Lookout Mountain. We are now on what is called the Mountain Beautiful Trail. So we moved back from the Rifle Pits Trail, back to Cravens House, and now we're on the Mountain Beautiful Trail. And you'll notice again, like where we stopped before, there's a sign that's going to tell us a little bit more about how history interacts with this location that we are currently standing on. Let's check out this sign right over here.
So that sign says "Union Picket Line Night November 24, 1863." Now that date hopefully does sound familiar, I've said it a few times at this point, that is the day of the Battle for Lookout Mountain. And so this is going to be where the Union soldiers end up in the evening on November 24th. And it says "picket line," a picket line is a military term for a thin line of soldiers here. And so the Union are going to fight, they're going to come around the mountain actually just past where we were, past Cravens House, to this point. And the Confederates are going to eventually retreat from the mountain and they're at going to head on over to Missionary Ridge, where there's going to be a battle on November 25th, the next day. So that's how the battle takes place. And again, it's kind of amazing we're out here, we're in nature, we're enjoying this beautiful weather, but we're also standing on some pretty amazing ground. And the more we know about it, the more we can appreciate it. There is one more plant that I want to show you before we decide that we're going to call it a day, and that is going to be a holly plant: American Holly. And so it's actually going to be behind me over here. It's actually right behind that tree, so if you want to come with me, let's go ahead and check that out.
All right everyone, so like I said here is this American Holly bush right down here. Now holly, some of you probably know and have seen it, it's really popular during Christmas time. But of course it grows all year round and this holly plant is going to be special because it actually has medicinal purposes. It was used as medicine. Now here in the park, specifically on Moccasin Bend, we have over 12,000 years of American Indian history. And we know that the American Indians actually did use plants and actually used American Holly as a medicine. This was way back before we had doctors that could prescribe medicine to make us feel better. And so people learned to use the resources they had, the natural resources, to make some of these remedies. And then if you think about it, when these white settlers are coming to Chattanooga, they're going to learn a lot about that as well.
So plants and nature and natural resources have a lot of different uses. Back when we were at the Rifle Pits Trail, remember we talked about how the Confederates were using the nature, were using those resources to build things to protect them? We also can enjoy the beauty of plants. We saw that Trillium that's going to have a beautiful bloom. We saw the Spring Beauty at Cravens House. And then we also have plants like holly that can be used as medicine. There's some really amazing different ways that nature can interact with our lives. And again, that nature can affect history. And knowing what we know, learning more, educating ourselves, can help us appreciate that all the more. Just like learning more about the history of this area, specifically we've been talking about the Battle of Lookout Mountain, learning more about that can also help us appreciate this area, appreciate the land.
So remember at the beginning of the program, I did say that this is going to be part of our Junior Ranger Series. It's our second film out of the four that we're going to do in total. So what you are going to do if you're watching this film, remember last time I had you guys design a flag and take a picture with that and send it to us? This time I'm challenging you guys to get outside, and you can just be in your backyard or if you have a green area around your home somewhere, or come to the park. And I want to see if you can find just one of these plants that we talked about today. And if you do find it, I'd love to see a picture of it or you with it if it's close enough to the trail that you can get close enough to it without disturbing nature. And you can either post that picture on social media and tag our park or you can email it to us at chch_education@nps.gov. Now just remember as you're getting out and exploring we want to be very respectful of the land. We want to take with us only memories or pictures and we want to leave only footprints, nothing else.
So in closing, recently here at the park we've had a lot of rain. And what that tends to do is that makes some of the runoff, these rills that are coming off the mountain, makes them really big. It makes them almost like mini waterfalls, and I don't know about you, but that sound of falling water is one of my favorite sounds in the entire world. So as a special treat what we're going to do in closing is I'm going to let you guys have a little listen to that sound and enjoy it, enjoy how relaxing it is. And who knows, maybe if you come to the park in the future after a good rain, you might get to hear it in person for yourself. So until our next Junior Ranger Series, I hope you guys have a great time getting out and exploring. Remember be safe, have fun, and I'll catch you next time.
Description
Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park is filled with natural wonders and beautiful plants. We hope you enjoy exploring your back yard as we explore nature here!
Duration
24 minutes
Credit
NPS
Date Created
04/17/2021
Copyright and Usage Info