Toads give you warts

Abstract: The authors provide activities through which teachers can share experiences in the outdoors with young children and teach them about herpetology, the study of amphibians and reptiles. Outdoor activities include observation, classification, and mapping. The authors also include activities for the classroom, including connections between the science projects and art. Keywords: amphibians, classification, outdoors, reptiles Article: "Toads give you warts." "The only good snake is a dead snake." With mantras like these, what is an elementary school teacher to do? The answer is easy: Take your students out of the classroom and into the field to experience the intrigue, the mystery, the challenge, and the beauty of the amazing number of reptiles and amphibians that share our world, all the while addressing the National Science Education Standards (National Research Council 1996; see Over the years, we have worked with a variety of elementary school teachers to introduce reptiles and amphibians to second through fifth graders, and we have been successful at changing the negative images and unfounded fears that children often bring to the study of reptiles and amphibians. The best part of our work, and certainly a favorite of the children, is the fieldwork. Nothing can substitute for the experience of being in the outdoors and searching for reptiles and amphibians. We have made our work easier by creating artificial resting habitats and shelters for local species of reptiles and amphibians. We accomplished this by taking pieces of plywood, tin, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipe and placing them strategically in the outdoors. Once our boards and pipes are in place, the animals arrive, and it is time to bring the children. For specific, detailed information on creating artificial habitats, see The purpose of this article is to describe our work in the field with children and herps, a collective name for reptiles and amphibians. We describe experiences you can provide for your students in the outdoors to help them learn basic science concepts. Toads, frogs, salamanders, snakes, and turtles are often overlooked for their value in teaching about biodiversity, niche partitioning, habitats, binomial nomenclature, biological classification, and animal adaptations