Rainy Day

Today was another mostly indoor day, doing lesson plans and research. Before the rain came, we mapped out our scavenger hunt on campus. It is for our group lesson plan and will show people how to use GPS. We ran into some poison ivy! Oddly I haven't seen any on the Tamposi and my guard was down. I will have to wait for tomorrow morning to see if I was able to wash all the oil off.
Elaina and I worked on our portion of the group project. We decided to define what a make a vernal pool and not a wetland. We plan to include it on the website and part of our packet. I also tried to come up with a user friendly instructions for how to use GPS. It is difficult to explain something when you aren't an expert.
Tonight I will work more on my pedagogy. I am also interested in Keeping a Nature Journal, by Claire Walker Leslie. I used to draw all the time for school but stopped when I decided not to be an art teacher. It is nice to return to an old hobby with a new perspective.

Looking to the Future

Last night I went to a portfolio presentation of this years graduates for EE and stayed for a slide show presented by Robin Ellwood. She is a Rye middle school science teacher who has been to Antarctica three times. While there, she does research and emails her students daily. Lesson plans at her school follow her experience. It made me so excited to know that there are opportunities like this for educators!

Scouting our sites

Today we visited the site Katherine is going to be working on. It is very close to the gate, which is good for younger students or people with limited mobility. It has a lot of tree diversity and some interesting stumps. while we were there journaling we saw an interesting interaction between a pair of blue jays and a pair of birds we are having a difficult time identifying. It was about the size of a pigeon, had a reddish-brown head and a lighter chest. There might have been a dark ban around it's neck. It was difficult to see because of the trees. the jays seemed to be after something they were protecting.
Next we went to what we thought might be a vernal pool. We walked the perimeter of the site, which was difficult because of the thick vegetation. At the opposite end from the trail there is an extension of more pools. This leads us to believe that it is actually part of a swamp. this isn't a huge crisis, because it would be nice to compare it to an actual vernal pool. But the thick vegetation provides a challenge. How can more than five students get close to it? If it were a bigger group, how can they experience it effectively if they can't get near it? We are going to have to brainstorm some ideas.
Tonight we are going to a Portfolio Presentation of this year's graduates. I am really excited to see what the end product is and start thinking about what i want to do with this degree.

Projects

Today we chose our project, formed groups, and began thinking about how we were going to meet our goals. I chose to do a GeoCache for my project, but it turned more into an informational scavenger hunt. There are four other people in my group, Katie, Elaina, Steph, and Katherine. We each are going to pick a site in the Tamposi and develop a lesson plan around it. We are going to create a map using GPS coordinates showing the sites. The lesson plans will be posted online, for locals to access. We are also going to map other sites of interest, of groups past and present. People will be able to develop GPS and compass skills while learning about the environment and history of the Barrington Headwaters.

hunting, tracking, and history

Welcome! Yesterday was our first time in the Barrington Headwaters (or Temposiland). We started out with a scavenger hunt to familarize ourselves with the site. There was so much to see and the more I looked the more questions I had. We saw abandoned homesteads, multiple-trunked trees, frogs the size of my thumbnail, wild flowers, a beaver dam, . . . I could go on for pages. While I was out there, sweating and getting bitten by mosquitos, I couldn't help thinking, this is so much better than working.
Today we met with Dan Gardoqi, the Director of the White Pine Program in Cape Neddick, ME. He led us through the Temposi looking for animal signs and tracks. There were a lot of things that were right in front of me that I totally missed yesterday. I walked right over coyote scat and moose tracks. I learnt what a sassafras tree looks like and how to spot squirrel bites on a tree.
After lunch Rick did his reading facilitation on Wessels, Reading the Forested Landscape. For part of it we went into the woods and sat for 5 minutes with our eyes closed. I can see how with a group of kids this would relax them immediately. I enjoyed listening to the wind move through the tree canopy. It was nice to sit and look after walking around so much.
Next we went to Warren farm where Randy Warren told us the history of the area. It turned into more when he started talking about his experiences as a farmer. It made me want to go to farms more often to buy produce. It also got me thinking about the label "organic". Sometimes it is not what you think and what is more important is actually knowing your farmer and his beliefs.