Survivor!

I never watch reality TV. Never seen an episode of Survivor or American Idol. Never care to.

But my program on Friday will be for a group of seventh graders and we're supposed to talk about winter adaptations during our snowshoe hike on the mountain. So I picked the theme "Survivor" and I'll let the kids tell me about what people do on the show to 'survive' (although the show is so contrived it's really a joke). Then I'll tie that into real life survival adaptations by the animals and plants that live in the subalpine areas we will hike through.

For instance... Did you know? Snowshoe hares not only adapt to winter by changing their coats to white and growing a thicker coat, but they also change their diet. In the summer, the hares eat flowers, plant leaves and stems and sedges primarily. In the winter, they live on the needles of evergreens - which mostly are Subalpine Fir trees around Paradise (our snowshoe hike location) at Mt. Rainier.