Nature Journaling Questions: A Taxonomy

Nature journaling questions are essential to what we do as nature journalers. However, we are not taught how to ask questions. In fact the dominant society and most schools teach us not to ask too many questions. I’m going to show you how to get better at questions in this video. I will show you a taxonomy of questions I am working on. When you have some categories such as these for questions you will be able to use them better.

I made this video as a followup to my class at International Nature Journaling Week 2021. Want to see that class? You can watch and participate in that class here: https://www.naturejournalingweek.com/marley-peifer-i-wonder  There are a lot of other cool resources and classes from nature journaling week that you can still access there. In addition to my class there are other classes about curiosity and how to use questions in our nature journals.

3 Benefits of Nature Journaling Questions

1. Questions are gaining in value while knowing things is losing value. This is a major shift of the time period we are living in and the education systems and people’s thinking around this are stuck in the past.
2.  Only tool for approaching the unknown. In Nature there is a lot of unknown and questions are the only way to dance with that. If we stick to known facts we can’t engage with the unknown. Most nature journalers are not natural history or science experts. Therefore we have many things we don’t understand in nature when we nature journal. Instead of ignoring these we can use questions to grapple with them.
3. Flexibility of mind. Practicing asking lots of questions keeps your mind flexible. Regardless of whether they are answerable or not. This is helpful for adults and “experts” who tend to get ossified in their thinking.

To see the full taxonomy of questions be sure to watch the video.

Are you new to nature journaling? If so, then this post has the basics : How to Nature Journal in 10 Steps

Do you need help choosing nature journaling supplies? In that case check out Nature Journaling Supplies: What You Need and What You Do Not