The day passed uneventfully, with everything going according to plan. Being a four day camp week, I have to cram five days worth of instruction into a smaller amount of camp time, so I shortened some lessons and changed things around a bit. We still managed to visit with the little tarantula who lives down near the Nature Lab though. He obediently sat on my hand while the kids all whipped out their cameras. Inside the Nature Lab itself, I discovered that one of the boys was so scared of snakes that he wouldn't even look at the lab's resident Gopher Snake. I didn't force the issue. People don't easily give up their phobias.

I almost forgot about a funny little "kid blooper" that happened yesterday: One of the kids was defining a term, possibly "decomposer" or something like that, using the word "organism", except that he left out a syllable. Yep. That one. None of the other kids noticed, but a science teacher from one of the schools was along on the hike and she definitely got a chuckle out of it.

The night hike tonight was rain free, but very bright. The moon, even though it is near full, was nowhere to be seen due to the omnipresent cloud blanket, but reflected city light washed away much of the darkness. I always make sure to talk about the city lights, and about why people feel compelled to leave so many lights on all night. It ties right into one of the subjects we cover at the beginning of every night hike. Of course I'm talking about fear. People in the cities are afraid of burglers and other even more nefarious criminal types sneaking into darkened buildings, while kids up at camp are usually afraid of something they saw in a movie, and imagine this thing sneaking around in the darkened forest. Fear is an important survival tool, but it seems that we do indeed live in a fearful society. People are more afraid than they need to be. Maybe.

Or maybe they're not afraid enough. Or maybe they fear the wrong things.

Who knows?