Various photos

Just to keep you updated...

Meredith and I at Krohn's conservatory

Cows at Stratford

Garden at Stratford Ecological Center.

Niagara Falls at night (highly recommended)

Audrey and I at Niagara Falls

Most of my photos are on facebook. I am thinking of using a site to upload some of my photos and was going to try it before I leave the country... any suggestions?

Madagascar

Sorry to leave you hanging but if you're wondering I am being invited to a program in Madagascar. Still waiting on all the info to come in the mail.

Be flexible...

Peace Corps Guinea has been cancelled, so I am now waiting for a reassignment to another program (should know by Friday). No idea where I'll be assigned or when I'll leave, stay tuned.

Thanksgiving update

I definitely forgot to update recently so here's a quick post to tell you what's going on. I finished up my job in Ohio last week, it was definitely a fun time but short. I felt like I had just unpacked. I packed up my car once again and headed out on a road trip with Audrey. The highlights of the trip were the Cleveland art museum (awesome art and free- definitely recommend it!) and Niagara Falls.

This week was Thanksgiving. I spent it with family in Massachusetts. We had a full house- my dad and step-mom hosted all five kids plus 2 significant others. We had another 6 for the Thanksgiving meal as well as various step-cousins/aunts/uncles who came in and out on other days. It's been a fun week but definitely tiring.

I am preparing to go to Africa, I am supposed to leave for a Peace Corps assignment in Guinea on January 13. They just had an election with results being announced Dec. 1, so after that I will have a conference call to give me more info. I'll be in MA for a few more weeks and then head down to NC for Christmas with my mom and sisters. In the mean time, I'll try to keep everyone posted.

Bits and pieces

This blog post is brought to you by the sugar high that comes with a bag of M&Ms. Let's see if it can get me through this update, there's a lot to cover.

Last week ended well, my group was the best I've had so far. They really enjoyed everything and followed directions. Also, the teachers and parents came and were enthusiastic about the program; that's always nice to see. It was freezing all week (think defrosting the car in the morning), lots of layers were necessary to keep warm!

Meredith came to visit this past weekend. Visitors are always fun and it was really great to hang out with Meredith (as always). We headed to Cincinnati for the weekend. It was a good time but we both agreed that it was kind of a weird city. It seemed like we never found a central "downtown" type area. Every sight we went to see was in a different area and almost all of them seemed a little run down. The sprawl didn't really surprise me because it seems to be an Ohio thing. Columbus is much the same. Tons of businesses with a Columbus address are actually in what I would consider the suburbs. Also, it seems like you just need to drive about 5 minutes on any major road in Ohio to find a strip mall or two. But that's another story.

In Cincinnati we visited the Krohn Conservatory, which is an indoor botanical garden. It was very small but nice. They had a lot of tropical plants. It sort of made me miss Florida even though those weren't at all the species I saw in Florida. Krohn Conservatory is in Mount Adams, an area that overlooks the city. The views were really neat, you could see the Ohio River from above. After that we visited Findlay Market. It was a public market with indoor and outdoor stands selling all kinds of food and produce. Kind of a giant farmers market/grocery/restaurant area. We got some really great food there including delicious Ohio cheese! We definitely ate well on our trip. Besides the market we ate at an Indian restaurant and had brunch at a fancy vegetarian place.

Sunday morning I ran in a half marathon. I was a little worried about it but it ended up being a good time (as good as running 13 miles can be). There were some nice people in the race and also cheering, I was also really grateful to have Meredith there on the course cheering. I was sore afterwards but it was nice to say that I did it!

This week is the last week of teaching. We have a very small group, less than 20 kids. Quite a change after the over 40 we had last week! Also, the weather has turned warmer for us (highs in the 60s all week) which makes work much more pleasant. This is the only group that has opted to stay for the Thursday evening portion of our program. This means we will be taking them to see all the farm animals and actually have our camp fire at night. It should be fun to do some new activities with the kids as well.

Next week is just cleaning up and will only be a half week, so I probably need to start thinking about packing up my things soon. It's crazy to think 2 months have flown by so fast- I just got here! Once I pack up I am headed to Massachusetts for Thanksgiving, then down to NC. I'll try to keep you posted on what's going on and get some more pictures up soon. Until next time!

Mid-week update, Week 4

I'll start with a funny tidbit. This week we have a group from a Catholic school. One of our activities is "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." At the beginning I ask the kids to guess who's coming to dinner (they all are... it's a game where they are wolves trying to catch a mouse). The longer you wait to tell them what's going to happen, the crazier the guesses get. This week one of the guesses was "God." Followed shortly by, "No! This isn't Bible camp, this is Hippie camp." It's so funny to me that kids born in the year 2000 still know about hippies.

This is probably the largest group of kids yet but they are incredibly well behaved. We finally have enough teachers/parents to have a chaperone with each group. The parents don't really get involved in discipline at all because they aren't needed, but I think having them there is helpful in itself. I don't know if its the 3 weeks of experience or the group I have but they are finally doing what they are asked (for the most part). This is the first week everyone has sat down in their Magic Spots! (According to the other crew leaders this is actually not uncommon. So maybe it is me) It's incredibly amazing to actually have 10-15 minutes of the afternoon to sit and relax instead of watching them all like a hawk.

The funniest thing about this group is their hunger. The schedule this week has had a couple days of late lunch and this is just not something they want to deal with. You would think their parents never fed them. However, it also works as great discipline tool to tell them if they don't listen or do an activity there will be no lunch. Working with kids makes you great at bartering and bribes.

I feel like I have been incredibly busy lately and I'm beginning to think that maybe once I should actually finish something in the allotted time period. In other words, I am working on finishing up 2 previous research papers which probably should have been done forever ago. Having no deadlines is terrible. Also, I am preparing for my upcoming move by combing through my possessions. There will definitely be some trips to Goodwill and other stuff will be given away to friends/family that can use the items I don't use. It's nice to get rid of things like that but it actually takes quite a bit of planning. Anyone want some used stuff?

On a final note, I am collecting addresses and other contact info. If you like to get letters and want to hear from me, please let me know what your address is!

So this week was my third week of teaching. There's only 2 weeks left now! (The last week of teaching was never filled, which also means I'll be getting out of Ohio a bit early.) For me this week was definitely the hardest. It was funny because about half of the crew leaders thought this week was the best and half thought it was the worst. I'll try to quickly recap for you...

The groups were smaller than last week which was a little bit of a relief. They seemed well behaved on Monday, I think this was before they realized we were giving them a lot of freedom to do things. As the week went on I think they decided they were going to go crazy with that freedom. But I am getting ahead of myself.

This week we had a group that contained 4th and 5th graders. I didn't think it made a huge difference to have the younger kids there. I had a group that was really into climbing logs, picking up sticks, acorns, rocks, etc. and generally being destructive. Despite the skit we do on Monday to show that picking up rocks and sticks is not allowed that never seemed to sink in. I think the most frustrating thing about this group was their inability to listen and follow directions. There was definitely a lot of pretending to not hear me when I asked a kid to do something. Also a lot of repeating... every time we had to do an activity in the passports I think I told them the page number at least 5 times. The best part of environmental education and this program is that you let kids get outside, be active and explore. It kind of ruins the experience when half of your time is wasted with "don't do" this or "don't do" that.

All complaints aside I am having a good time. I am learning a lot and the time flies by every day from when the kids arrive to when they leave. I'm going to take some time to give you an idea of what we do each week...

MONDAY
Kids arrive and get oriented. The activities we do are called "Touch the Earth," and they generally let the kids just have some fun out in nature. We also introduce Magic Spots. Magic Spots are a favorite; the kids get some time every day to sit in their own special spot and do whatever they want (given it is quiet and solo). We also do Artists & Scientists where kids look at nature from an artist's view and a scientist's view.





TUESDAY
The kids get their passports. They go through the passport office where their teachers are dressed up in wigs and act as the tough passport officials. Then we do the first concept path. There are 7 major concepts the kids learn throughout the week on various concept paths. Magic spots again (every day).



WEDNESDAY
Second concept path. In the afternoon magic spots and Micro Parks. In Micro Parks the kids get to build their own national park for leprechauns. They are awesomely creative and love building the parks and giving tours. (Don't have any photos of this one yet)

THURSDAY
Final concept path. Then magic spots and Lost Letters. In lost letters, they get clues that require them to look for things in nature. Figuring out the clues gets them different letters until they can spell out "discovery."

Decoding the letters

Getting a clue

FRIDAY
Friday we start with a story at a camp fire (this is actually supposed to be on Thursday night but so far all the groups have opted to skip the evening portion so we cut some activities and do it Friday instead). The story reviews the concepts and the kids get a necklace that reminds them of the concepts. Then we do Model Planets, where the kids get in groups to make their own planets. They figure out their planets can't support life and everyone moves the contents of their planet to "Earth." Once everyone gets to Earth we all get in the planet and realize that its so crowded things are getting destroyed, a metaphor for real life.

Discussing how we can walk carefully

"Earth"

A model planet being created

In the afternoon we think about our environmental bad habits at Magic Spots. We share plans to fix them at the Sunship Convention. After that there is a closing ceremony that kind of finishes what we started on Monday, then the kids return to school.

Media at the Sunship Convention

Whew, so there's the overview. If you read that whole thing congrats on making it through. Now I'm off to work on my to do list for the weekend...

Fall Photos

Sunrise on my way in to work



Fall foliage! (Photos from Alum Creek State Park)






Alum Creek

Halfway

This week marked the halfway point of my internship here in Ohio. I can't believe I've already been here for 4 weeks! This past week we had a larger group of kids that included boys. I really liked my group of kids this week and we had a lot of fun together. It was definitely harder to keep a bigger, co-ed group of 10 and 11 year olds paying attention to you but at the end of the week all the kids said they had a great time.

The weather in Ohio is definitely turning. Last weekend I went to Alum Creek State Park for a run and tried to get some good foliage photos. After my car was frosted over one morning I invested in an ice scraper. I haven't lived somewhere where I needed one since I've been driving. I have been trying to bike to work as much as possible, it saves me a lot of money on gas and saves the environment. Because we start work at 7:30 I have to bike in the dark, so thank goodness I have some good lights and a helmet! Friday morning it was 32 degrees out when I biked in. I had a really hard time thinking about anything other than how cold I was on my bike ride to work, I'm really going to have to make some sort of cut off for how much I can stand before I decide to drive instead of biking.

I know you're probably all wondering what my plans are for the future. I just accepted an invitation to join the Peace Corps, so I'll be leaving for Guinea on December 1. I'm nervous about how soon that feels but am excited about a new adventure. So, once I finish up here I'll be headed to Massachusetts for Thanksgiving then to North Carolina for a quick visit before I leave the country. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with this blog, but I'll also be collecting addresses so I can write letters while I'm away.

That's all for now, have a great Sunday!

Snuggie.

Funniest part of my week last week:

We have a campfire part of the program that occurs near the end to help wrap things up. Before and after the campfire we meet with our groups and sit together on a blanket. These blankets were donated. I go to spread out my blue fleece blanket for my group and lo and behold it had a hood and sleeves. Yes, my friends, the blanket was a Snuggie. Awesome for keeping you warm, not so awesome for a picnic blanket.

Keeping me on my toes...

So today started my second week teaching the Sunship Earth program. It was nice to have a better idea of how some of the activities would go today, but this internship will definitely keep me on my toes for the entire 8 weeks (or 5 more really).

Last week was the first week we had students. The kids came from an all-girls school in Columbus. All the schools coming this year are private schools, so I am interested to see how they all handle the outdoorsy program we have. My group was pretty mellow with a range of personalities from the girl who made sure I knew how much she didn't like nature to the one who preferred to wander on her own than listen to the crew leader. I think the most important thing I learned is to be ready for anything. Just about every concern the kids had one I hadn't even considered. The kids were concerned about getting hand sanitizer as soon as they finished digging around in the soil, about not sharing hats because of the chance of getting lice, about drinking well water. I also learned that cats are incredibly distracting for 10 year olds, especially that one kid in your group who inevitably loves cats more than life itself. And you should never let your kids hold the chickens early in the week because they will ask you all week when they can go back.

The cool thing about this program is that we do have our own crews but on Wednesday and Thursday we get to work with other crews all morning. It's really nice to have a different group of kids but it definitely tests your ability to adapt. After getting used to my crew on Monday and Tuesday last week, the group on Wednesday was incredibly sharp and speedy at completing the tasks and the group on Thursday was much more high-energy. It's amazing how quickly you start to think up new activities for the kids who are crazy energetic and get done drawing/writing out their example before everyone else. On Friday, the day where you wrap everything up, all the absent kids were in my group and we only had 3 people. It made the whole day kind of difficult because we finished everything early and were very quiet in the only activities all week that require the kids to get pumped up. Oh well, overall I think it went great.

This week I am still learning, tomorrow I teach a new set of activities that I didn't get to teach last week. Also, this is the first week we have a co-ed group so that adds a new dynamic. Today the boys and girls seemed to mesh pretty well. My group seems like its going to be fun, although fairly hyper. I'll let you know how things go and also tell you a little more about Sunship Earth later.

Life with 5th graders

So today was day 2 of teaching 5th graders. Monday we did a bunch of small activities to get in touch with the earth and today we moved onto learning more about the big concepts that Sunship Earth focuses on. Both days have flown by, we move from one activity to the next all day long. Its been a whole lot of fun but tiring. It is really interesting to see what activities the kids really enjoy and to watch them as they start to understand the concepts. I will give a better update later, just wanted to let you know how things were going!

Another week down...

Wow, so another week has already flown by. We practiced teaching this week, but since there are a lot of people we really only got to teach 1 lesson from each day of the week. Monday is our first day with fifth graders, students from an all-girls school are coming. I don't feel all that nervous about it yet. There is a lot to teach but we have some good notes to follow so hopefully I will get it all straight.

In other news, I have been staying pretty busy outside of work. I have been biking to and from work and figured out how to bike into town as well. It's really nice to be able to get around without my car all the time. I feel like I need to take advantage of the beautiful weather now before it gets really cold outside. Seeing the fall is really beautiful, it's been such a long time since I lived somewhere with distinct seasons. Hopefully I will get some photos up soon.

Friday afternoon I went to Ohio Wesleyan's campus and heard Gloria Steinem talk. It was really cool to see how inspiring she was to so many different people who got up to say thank you to her during the question/answer time. This morning I ran a 5K, then went into work to help finish setting stuff up for Monday. I am hoping for a nice relaxing Sunday tomorrow.

Week 1

Hello all!

So, I survived week one of my new job. It's hard to believe that means that I am already 1/8 of the way through this internship. This week we experienced the program as fifth graders and were taught all the lessons by our boss. It ended up being a lot of fun! It was definitely a stretch for my imagination after spending the last year in very science-oriented atmospheres but it was also a lot of fun. The Sunship Earth program is very based on teaching general and reinforcing them with activities. The kids are supposed to explore more specific examples on their own. This coming week we are practicing being the teacher. I am excited about learning this part of the program, but also nervous. I think I will learn a lot being a teacher here, but I am not sure that teaching is something that will come naturally for me.

Life in Ohio has been fairly busy. We are very close to Ohio Wesleyan University and Delaware has a nice downtown area with some cool shops/restaurants. On Friday night Gilda and I headed there for their First Friday festivities. It was mostly geared towards families but it was still nice to walk around downtown and see all the people.

Yesterday we were shown around Columbus by one of the ladies who is on the board and volunteers at Stratford. We visited the New Market, an indoor market that had lots of different food choices and a farmer's market. It was a very cool atmosphere. I have been impressed with the pride people take in their local community here, eating and buying local seems to be important to a lot of people. We saw a topiary garden in Columbus where the topiaries are designed to look like Seurat's famous painting (A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jette) and went to a book store with I think 39 rooms of books. We drove around OSU campus, it is enormous! The football stadium is massive and we drove past the fields where I played in Nationals for ultimate in 2009. It was a fun day and I could easily go back to Columbus each weekend and discover something new to do.

Today I am planning to play ultimate, last week it didn't work out because pick up is on Sunday not Wednesday. I am hoping the weather holds out because its supposed to rain today. Wish me luck!

First Day

Today was my first day at my new job. I am an intern at Stratford Ecological Center in Delaware, OH. Stratford is an ecological center that is part nature preserve and part organic farm. I am working as an instructor for the Sunship Earth program. It's a new program for 5th graders, they come for a week to learn about the environment. This week I am experiencing the program from the perspective of a fifth grader. Environmental education is a new thing for me but it should be a quick and dirty learning experience (my internship is 2 months long).

I just finished up my internship at Archbold Biological Station in Florida last week. I can truly say that was an awesome experience. I worked in the plant ecology lab where I got to participate in a ton of different lab projects. I also did my own research on the soil seed bank. I can't even begin to tell you all the great things I learned. I can definitely say that my internship got me very excited about plant ecology and field research, and I hope to return to that sort of work soon!

I am living in an apartment right now with one other roommate, Gilda. Gilda is also an intern at Stratford, she is from Mexico City. It is interesting to live with someone from a different culture. Our apartment is nice and clean but incredibly sparsely furnished (i.e. one table, 2 chairs, air mattress... you get the idea). It's definitely a change to have a lot of alone time and down time after living at Archbold. I never thought I would miss having other people around all the time! It will be great to have the alone time but I hope to find some friends/activities to fill up my free time.

Well, I am off to find ultimate frisbee in Columbus tonight. I'll keep you posted!

Hello!

I've been having a lot of adventures lately and not enough time to keep everyone updated. In the past year I have been exploring the world of plant ecology. I worked as a research technician in Aiken, South Carolina last year and I am currently finishing up an internship at Archbold Biological Station in Lake Placid, Florida. My next adventure will be as an environmental education intern in Delaware, Ohio. More details on all this to come...