Touching is seeing?

Yesterday, Amy, Matt & I, taught Kindergarten at Chamberlin. It was a new experience for me to be in a school building, as a teacher, not a student. 45 mins is not a very long time to have with kindergarten to attempt to cover living/non-living, MASH, Seeds & Plants, and seasons. I really wished that I could have taken those children to Merry Lea. Their curiosity and energy was contagious. Instead of having them come to carpet and since we had Autumn Adventure workbooks for them to write in, I had them stay at the tables. This helped with crowd control, and I was able to bring things to each table group. I am constantly amazed at how many times I hear "I can't see" from a child in the group of students that I am working with. This did happen occasionally in the classroom, but even more often in groups at Merry Lea. Often, when I observe the child, this was especially true in the classroom, that to me there is no reason that the child can't see. I was holding the plastic jar of frogs right above the middle of the table group, the child had no obstruction to seeing the jar or the frog inside. When she was able to put a hand on the jar she calmed down. Why is seeing so often associated with touching? How often do adults tell children to look, but not touch? How do we work with their natural inclination to touch, and yet make sure that each has the opportunity to "see"? We try to talk about being gentle, of leaving things intact, often adults emphasize the dangers of thorns or poison ivy. I want them to experience nature, not just think of it as something beautiful to look at, but something to interact with. In thinking about changing attitudes, it seems increasingly clear that interacting with nature is the only way that behavior changes. So how do we walk the line? Encouraging gentle touching (without scratches or itchy results). Is observing (without touching) a skill that needs to be taught?