3 ideas
Each species lesson is built as a sequence of pointed questions that send the child back to the living specimen (how does the robin hop, where do its eyes point, what does it do before rain), rather than a set of facts to memorize. The teacher's job is to frame the questions and withhold the answers, so knowledge is produced by the child's own looking and becomes theirs.
Comstock argues a teacher unfamiliar with nature study should not fear it, because saying 'I do not know; let us find out together' makes the teacher a fellow investigator and models honest inquiry. Pretending to authority teaches children that knowledge comes from adults and books. Admitting ignorance teaches them that it comes from careful looking at the thing itself.
Being able to name a bird or flower is not the goal of nature study and can stand in for real knowledge. What counts is understanding how the organism lives: what it eats, how its body fits its habits, and how it relates to its surroundings. Seen this way, a common weed or English sparrow in the schoolyard is as worthy a subject as a rare specimen, because the aim is to see how a living thing works, not to collect labels.