The old turtle scraped at the sand with her naily toes as the kids gathered in a wide circle around her. Sometimes I get questions about dinosaurs on field trips, but they don’t fit into the Museum’s focus on Northern Wisconsin species. Today, instead, the first- and second-graders got a close-up...

The fleshy stem bore no leaves, just a sprig of beautiful little flowers on the upper half. Each blossom looked like a whimsical elf. Coralroots exist underground for much of their lives, and their flowering stalk may not pop up every year, or in the same place. So, while widespread and not...