Schmeekle Final

Overall, I've had a pretty good experience with the service learning project this semester. I was happy with our decision to volunteer in Schmeekle because it gave us a chance to get outside and interact with nature. I wish I could have done something a little more interactive with people, but due to scheduling conflicts with me and my partner Lauren as well as lack of transportation, we had to make due with a project right here on campus. At first, I wasn't too crazy about having to do a service learning project, even through the first couple of weeks. Because the weather was so uncooperative, we just didn't like the idea of going outside. But as it got nicer out and we actually set up a work schedule with Schmeekle, it was a lot less of a hassle and more fun to go out and walk the trails to pick up litter. I was completely amazed by how much litter there actually was throughout the reserve, and it made me realize just how much of a problem it is. Especially after our class trip to Schmeekle, I developed a greater respect for the plant and animal life out there that may suffer because of pollution caused by people being careless. I am very happy with our efforts because a lot of people use Schmeekle, and no one wants to see garbage everywhere they turn when they go out there to enjoy some time with nature. Now, I am much more conscious of myself and throwing away my own garbage as well as encouraging others not to litter. I notice it around campus more often as well. This project has given me the opportunity to make a difference in the community, which was something new for me because I had never really done much community service in the past. It was fun to do something outside of the classroom as well, because the conventional method of lectures and labs gets a little repetitive at times. I also enjoyed spending extra time with people outside of class because it gave me a chance to get to know Lauren in a more casual setting. It was also fun to see how the environment adapted to the changing seasons, from winter to spring. It's amazing how much nicer everything looked once the snow melted, puddles dried up, and flowers/vegetation started springing up. Overall, it's been fun and I've learned a lot!

Finally Finished

We are finally done with our project. On Monday we did our presentation in the dorm and I think that went over very well. We had about ten or fifteen people show up which was fairly good. Most of the people there we our friends so sometimes they weren’t always on their best behavior. When things did get settled down the presentation was really good and some of the guys even had questions. I think we did a good job explaining everything to them even the things that weren’t in the power point.
Now that it is all over I’m really glad that I did the project. When we first decided to do a project on common dorm sicknesses I didn’t think I would learn very much because again these things are quite common and people just know about them. But, there were some very interesting things about some of these sicknesses that we found we quite interesting. Some of the troubles we ran into while working on this project was just time to work together. We all had very different schedules and personal lives that sometimes made it hard for us to communicate with each other outside of class. We got over these obstacles very well and we put together a great project.
Looking back on what we did I think that we probably should have done more sicknesses. The ones we did were great and worked really well for our concept but there were a few others that we could have done that would have made it better. I also found the teaching aspect to be quite difficult. It can be challenging to get eighteen and nineteen year old guys to always stay on track and focused. Now I can see what some teachers may have to go through and I can say it can be a little frustrating.
Although teaching was difficult at times it was a great experience. It taught me that even though when I’m in class there are things that we do that don’t seem so bad really do annoy teachers. This I’m hoping will help me develop into a better student. I really enjoyed working with my group. We got a lot accomplished and we worked well together. Overall I had lots of fun working on this project and I got a lot more out of it than I ever thought. It was a fun and interesting experience for me and I enjoyed it a lot more than I ever thought I would.

The animation is finished!!!

After a long friday night of finishing and fine tuning the animation, I then struggled through two days of swearing loudly, and repeatedly at my computer, and youtube, trying to compress the incredibly large file to something small enough for youtube to handle, until finally, on sunday night, the finished product was ready to upload. (Though I have been siting here for nearly half an hour waiting for it to do so...)



Here it is, the long awaited finished product of several strenuous hours of work on my, Cody’s, Steven’s and Steph’s part. We all worked together to write, record and visually express the process that is cellular respiration.

From doing this project, I now have a ridiculously thorough understanding of cellular respiration. I first realized though, that perhaps I was spending too much time on this project, when I had my first dream about the electron transport chain, then the krebs cycle, then woke up all angry because they came in the wrong order.

I also learned a lot about working in a group on such a big project. I have done an animation like this before (photosynthesis), but then I was on my own. Having to work with other people on this was sometimes a challenge, mostly with trying to find times when all four of us could meet long enough to get something done. But except for a little pinch on time towards the end here, we managed to do it pretty well.

The original intent of this project was to put together an informative video about cellular respiration, that was simple enough for a high schooler to understand. As far as the content goes, I would say we were successful. But it was actually way harder than we thought to dumb down some of the steps, without taking away from the overall concept. Because of this, the writing took way longer than any of us expected, and was difficult to do as a group, as all of us had different ways we would word something. Again, we came out all right, but in the future, I think I would try delegating sections to individuals to summarize themselves on their own time, so we could have gotten started with the recording much sooner. The recording was by far the most enjoyable, as each of us now has a whole plethora of sound bites of us swearing after a failed attempt at saying succinate dehydrogenase.

Though the animation is not quite as smooth, and did not come out quite as nicely as I would have liked, I am still quite pleased with it, and I hope that it serves its purpose, and educates some kid out there trying to do his bio homework.

Sturgeon Guard Recap

To start off, I will go over a recap of Chad and my service learning project. That is I will briefly describe what we did and were we went. Our service learning project was Sturgeon Guard. We were working with the Wisconsin Department of Natural resources in their attempt to protect these prehistoric creatures during their long and tough journey up the streams and rivers to bread every spring. These fish are especially vulnerable during this time of the year because of the tremendous strains that are put on them in terms of making the long trek up the river and going through with the acts of spawning. It was our job to see that there were no outside forces tampering with their missions because they are unable to protect themselves. The sturgeons journey up stream is a long one but once they have reached their spawning grounds they will find a fish of the opposite sex and spawn for hours until they have finished then they return to the lake or river system where they had originally came from.
I learned a lot from this experience. It was quite amazing to see such things happening in the wild instead of only hearing about it in lab and lecture. It was interesting seeing it and noticing things that you wouldn’t normally think of. One such thing is the actual act of breading. The sturgeon breed externally which mean that the female release the eggs and then the male releases the sperm on them in the rocks. I had never seen this until this project and it was really cool. The female would appear first and would come up into as shallow of water as she could on top of rocks. The females were normally bigger than the male and averaged between 5 and 6 feet long. Then not long after the male, which was normally between 3 and 4 feet long would swim up right next to her as close as possible. The female would then release her eggs into the water and immediately after, the male would begin to shake violently and releasing his sperm. I’m not sure what the purpose of the shaking was but I would imagine it was to stir up the eggs and the sperm and make sure they fertilize. Then after it was all over with, the two, or sometimes more fish, would drift off into the deeper water only to return minutes later and repeat the process.
It was unbelievable how this project can be applied to bio 160. I could recognize a lot of aspects of reproduction we went over in class and had a much better understanding of the situation prior to getting there because of class. Having done this project, I was able to apply what I had learned in Bio 160 to the real world.

Sturgeon Patrol

The service learning project changed my views on learning. It opened my mind up to a whole new method of acquiring knowledge. Before Bio 160 I have never really done a whole lot of volunteering. Just a couple of hours here and there for school.
What I liked is how the project that I picked related to class. In this project we covered a couple different areas that were discussed in class. One of these areas that the project targeted heavily on was wildlife conservation. While doing sturgeon guard I had the chance to step back and look at the impacts humans have on the world around them. When looking at the sturgeon I can see that without the help of conservationist they might not be around today. With the management of the DNR a healthy population is maintained and people still have the chance to fish for sturgeon. Without the management, the sturgeons are very vulnerable to over harvest by humans and their population would be in jeopardy. I felt that Andy and I helped do our part in conservation by being there and making sure no person decided to harm the vulnerable spawning sturgeon. By volunteering in this field I realized that humans need to realize their impacts in this world and they need to be aware of what they can do to help maintain and improve our world.
Another aspect that we covered during this project was having a chance to witness the biology of animals as we disused in class. One of the most obvious sights was that of the reproduction of fishes. We not only got to see how the sturgeon naturally interacted with one another but we also had the chance to view close up encounters of the actual spawning process. We not only witnessed it, but because of class, we understood what was happening and why the fish acted in such a manner. Besides the sturgeon we also witnessed other wildlife. We saw carp, suckers, ducks, downy woodpeckers, robins, and many more. We even had the chance to hear a beaver slapping its tail on the water at us to warn others of our presence. It was nice to take what we learned from lab and be able to identify all sorts of different animals.
The biggest thing for me personally to get out of the project was to volunteer in a field that I am interested in getting a career in. Being a fisheries major, this project was right up my alley. I had the chance to talk to the wardens on duty about studies being done on the sturgeon and also how the fish act and why. I plan on taking the knowledge acquired and using it when planning for that dream job. Overall I feel this project was a success and I plan on volunteering for this next year.

CPS Daycare

I have done volunteer work in the past but I had never really thought about my influence on the society that I had volunteered in. Being introduced to this service project was new to me and was something that I will take with me forever. I loved the over all thought of the service project, working with kids makes me happy as it is, and if I am able to show and help them in different ways it makes me feel good. As an assistant teacher I was a bit of an influence on the children, and it was nice to know that some of those kids looked up to me. It was easy to see that when I walked in the room with a huge smile on my face more children looked my way and wanted to play with me. I noticed this because there were some adults that did not always smile as much as me and I could tell that the children noticed this as well. Of course the children would rather be with the smiling teacher. I feel that showing the kids that I can be happy every time they see me is good for them because than they feel like they can be happy and silly with me as well. This is definitely a positive thing and it makes me more positive on my out looks at life with children. This project has made me realize things in myself that I would not have realized had I not spent this time at a daycare. There were many days were the kids were very well behaved and good listeners, but then there were the days where they all felt like they needed attention and needed to get into some trouble. It was days like the troubled ones, that kept me on my feet and concentrating on my patience. As they say, patience is a virtue, this is something that does not come when you are born, and is something that is hard to do at times. Working with children has helped me to pay more attention to my patience, not just with the children, but even my friends at times. I really enjoyed this opportunity for all of us to get involved with the community; I feel that it was good for the community as well as ourselves. Coming into college and being on our own it is projects like this that help us develop great habits on our own like helping out the community. The pictures that I added are of the children petting a dog that came in for their last week of classes. They loved the golden retriever named Steve, it was so great to see the smile on their faces.

good times at the childrens museun

i wasnt particularly excited about this whole project and working with kids to start out with really. i wasnt sure that i wanted to work with obnoxious kids for hours and try and make them pay attention to something when they could be out doing other things. but after the first time going to the childrens museum i found that it was actually a pretty good time. i really enjoyed working with the kids and teaching them things about animals, and hearing about what they already knew about them. some of the kids were just so excited to learn and talk to us about animals, i was a little surprised by this as i expected them to shy and afraid of a group of older kids. working with all of the kids kinda reminded me of what i was like when i was a kid and how i was interested to learn about things. there were a lot of projects that looked like they would be. it feels pretty good to know that i could teach a handfull of kids about animals and just answer any of their questions that they had. it really reinforced my interest in becoming a teacher by showing me how fun and interesting it can be to teach kids. you can go to classes all day about teaching and you never really get a good feel about what its like to teach a kid but to actually get to do it really helps in making the decision to become one. my favorite moment of this whole project was probably the first day of the project. the three of us went into the childrens museum not knowing wut to expect or anything only with our supplies. after a little while of waiting and planning kids started to come over and we were no longer afraid or unsure, we were now the fun teachers and helpers. i think that this project definately helped me out in life. i feel that i am more confident in having the ability to help and teach others as well as having a little more confidence in myself. we kinda just found this option by chance,we saw a vounteering tab and we clicked on it and happened to find it by chance. if i had to do this all over again i definately would pick to do the same thing again with out a doubt.

Final Children's Museum

A few weeks ago, I was completely hesitant going into this project. I just wanted it to be over and done with and to get a good grade for it. Little did I know that, this week I would be looking back at it and missing all the fun times we had with the kids. Service learning has changed me in a healthier sense. I feel as though I'm a happier person. Each week I looked forward to doing child-like activities on friday's. I'm glad that we chose to work with the kids over at the museum and Tonya our coordinator couldn't have been more helpful and kind. Although none of our projects were ever too difficult, it was the simplicity involved that kept it interesting. We tried not to get too stuck with specifics for our projects and we usually just went out on a limb once we got there.

I would have to say my favorite project was being able to help out with Autism Night. Going into it we weren't sure what to expect. I had never met a child with autism and I wasn't sure if we would be doing activities. That night I learned a severe lesson in life: the ability to listen. We sat and listened to parents pour their hearts out about their unique children. I have forever been changed by their words of wisdom and hopefully by talking about it in our blogs, someone has read them and taken something away from it. In my opinion, the service learning portion of this class was a vital part of the curriculum. There is only so much that lectures and labs can teach us. I thought it was cool that we were all able to come up with our own project. It was important that we were never really given alot of specific examples of previously done projects because it forced us to think and be unique. By working in groups I was able to learn the value of cooperation and teamwork, and I also made new friends. Through our service learning project I realized how we can't always assume that kids know even the most basic things in life, they usually learn from casual conversations. They were generally intimidated by us when we came to visit because we were the "big kids", but I hope we proved them wrong by creatively teaching them new leasons about animals without them even knowing it. My hope is that we managed to educate these kids while still having a good time. I hope that they look back on their experiences with us and are just as happy as they have made us.

I learned Where Debot Goes

Going into the service learning project I was pretty skeptical about the learning part. I knew that I would be doing a service to for the community but was not to sure about how much I was going to learn. During my service learning project I learned a lot of new information as well as incite into the social aspects of trying to educate the public. A majority of the people who walked through the HEC were unresponsive to the information that we were presenting. For the most part the people who stopped were people we knew and were curious to see what we were doing. If I did this project again, I would chose a more interesting subject and have a more interactive display so that we could get more people we didn’t know to get curious and come check it out. Learning how to more effectively engage and teach the public is an important skill I gained from this project. This is an important skill to learn because I plan on having a career in natural resource management and teaching the public about current issues is a part of that job. I also gained skills in teamwork during this project. In order for us to put a successful project together we had to make decisions about the information, poster size, design, layout etc. that satisfied the whole group.Learning about the digestive system and the common diseases for the different organs has helped me make wiser lifestyle choices. Eating a more balanced diet and cutting down on my alcohol consumption are two things that I have been doing and as a result my digestive system is healthier and I feel better than ever. Before this project I didn’t know why I got ailments like acid reflux and canker sores but now I know how to avoid getting them. The service learning project connected to a couple of my classes. The first was the lab portion of our class. When dissecting the rat, crayfish, etc. I was able to identify the different digestive organs because they were pretty similar to the human digestive system. It also connected to my health and wellness class because a big part of staying healthy is keeping your digestive system healthy and eating

Schmeekle Reserve

For my service learning project I did some volunteer work at Schmeekle Reserve. I thought this would be a good place to do the project because I am a natural resources major. The main purpose of my project was to help make Schmeekle Reserve a better place for visitors, learn more about it for myself, and to learn more about animals.
Looking back on the project I think it went pretty good. When I first started working there I was unsure about how it was going to go because I was unsure about what type of work I was going to be doing. Alex, the person who helped me get started, said he would make a list of things for me to do and leave it there for me. The first thing I did when I was there was help make signs in the shop. This is helpful to the people that are at Schmeekle because the signs inform visitors about the rules and they also mark the trails and help you know where you are while you are walking them. When I was there I also walked the trails and looked for muddy spots. I marked the spots on a map and then they were filled in with wood chips. This really benefits the visitors there so they don’t get muddy or have to walk off the trail. While I was doing this I really learned my way around Schmeekle because I have never walked around the whole thing before. I was also able to look for animals and identify them while I was doing this. This really benefited me because it was related to the class. Some of the animals I seemed to notice the most were: Red winged blackbirds, crows, mallards, and robins. I also saw quite a few deer. One thing I noticed about the deer is how tame they are. I was able to come about 15 or 20 yards from them and they didn’t even move. I probably could have got even closer but I just kept walking on the trail. I also helped them build a frame for a boardwalk they are putting in over a wet spot. This was fun because I like to build things and it was nice to work with other UWSP students that work there year round. It was also nice to help build something that I know many people will use for a long time while they are walking the trails.
My project was pretty much what I expected. What I wanted to get out of this project is a better understanding about what goes on at Schmeekle and I wanted to learn more about it. I think I fulfilled these expectations by working hand in hand with members of their staff. I also learned more about the reserve by just exploring it for myself.

Where Debot Goes

For our service learning project we did Where Debot Goes. The main purpose of our project was to help people learn more about the digestive system with what it is all made of and some common diseases in the digestive system. I believe it was a good project to do and did help me with learning more about different diseases. With going to into Athletic Training, I need to know what helps make the digestive system run properly and doing this project helped me with knowing what foods help keep a healthy digestive system. Also, found out how much of the particular food you need to eat too.

The first day we presented our project in the HEC was on Wednesday April 29th from 11:45- 12:45. The first day was kind of slow with getting people come and stop to look at the poster and talk with us. Many students just walked by and laughed when they looked at the name of the poster. We did get a few students to stop and ask a few questions but not many. Then on Thursday, Tyler and Adam were presenting the poster in the HEC and according to them, they had many more students and faculty stopped by and ask questions. Friday when Tyler and I presented the poster had to wait longer until the rain stopped so the poster didn’t get ruined by the rain. That day we didn’t have anyone really stop and ask questions. There were very few students who walked through the HEC at that time. Tyler and I both agreed that the time we went was not a good time and if we could have, to have been in the HEC earlier in the afternoon than when we went. With being in the HEC during the busy time when students are going to class or lunch helped with students walking through the HEC but I believe some of the students either had something to or just didn’t want to stop.

I believe it was a great project for helping students to understand how the digestive system works but it doesn’t help when students don’t stop by to learn something. I really don’t know exactly what we could have done different but if there was something we could have done differently, we would have. For me, I was hoping to get more students to stay by but that didn’t happen so that was kind of frustrating but yet I also had a feeling that not many students were actually going to stop by and questions too. It was still a good experience for me since I got to learn more about how too keep my digestive system healthy and working properly. I would do the project again but different so more students would be more likely to stop by and ask questions.

Final Comments on the Children's Museum

My group members and I have found our work at the Central Wisconsin Children’s Museum to be very beneficial and well worth our time. At first glance, many people have the notion that the only person that is benefiting from someone’s volunteer service is the person that you are directly helping. I have found this to be invalid throughout my time working with the children at the museum. With our work, we had helped numerous young children with little animal projects that gave them a much better understanding of a certain animals eating habits, habitat, migration habits, being able to distinguish that one species from another, and many more concepts. The thing that really surprised me as the semester rolled along was the little ways that this service-learning project was really benefiting me. I knew it would be ethically good to help and volunteer, but I had no idea how much it would help my socialization and teaching skills. In the past, I have never really sat down with someone specifically to teach him or her something about something that they might not completely understand. On top of this, I have not really associated with kids ages 3-10 like I did when spending time at the Children’s Museum. I do have younger siblings and I do know how they can behave, and act, but I usually do not sit down and spend time with them teaching something to them, mostly because I do not see them a whole lot because I am gone at college. At first, I found myself in a way kind of shy when trying to talk to the children or when working on the projects with them, but each time I returned to the museum, I found myself more comfortable with them and began interacting with them more and more.

This service-learning experience did connect to the things we were learning in class in that we took the topics we learned, and broadened them out to teach them at a children’s level. When we were doing this, we often found ourselves reading children’s books we got from the library and learning many little interesting facts that we had never known before. I thought this was a great way to learn things in the topics we are going through in class, and I think it was a great way to teach us to be involved and help out within the community, because it really does help you as well as the people you are performing the service for. I think this was a very good activity that more courses should consider incorporating into their curriculum. With all things considered, I had a great time with my experience at the Children’s Museum and I think it is a very good experience to have and would recommend an experience like this at least once in someone’s life, just so they know the things you can benefit from it. Usually, after someone does it once, they find the personal benefits that can be obtained and continue to volunteer throughout the course of their life.

final toilet teacher post

When we first started the service learning project I didn’t expect to learn much of anything. I thought it was just going to be some busy work to try and get us involved in the community but I was quite wrong. I actually learned some valuable information from my service experience and I think a lot of other people did as well. Our project involved teaching our fellow dorm users about some of the common sicknesses and diseases in the dorms and ways to prevent them. I think it was very beneficial for the students who read our flyers and attended our informational meeting. We made informational pamphlets to hang in the bathroom. I think these made a big impact we knew the pamphlets already in the bathroom by heart so we knew people would read our pamphlet if it was put up in every bathroom. They now have information that can help them stay healthier when they stay in the dorms in the future and throughout their life. Our informational meeting went very well. It was a little repetitive from the pamphlets but there was a lot of new information added as well. We had a good turnout and everyone that showed up left with some good information on how to stay healthy in the future.

Looking back, the only thing we talked about that we would want to change would be a wider variety of sicknesses. We started our project during the end of winter so we concentrated on sicknesses common in the winter but now people will be prepared for next winter.

The aspect of the service project I found most beneficial for myself and other members of my group was that we actually had to do some teaching. We had to prepare information in a way that students of our age would pay attention and be interested. It was quite a challenge and now we know what college professors have to go through every day to try and keep students interested.

Final post: Animation

Throughout this entire project I have learned quite a bit about not only organizational skills but also how difficult it is to prepare something educational. This project was more difficult than I had previously imagined it to be, the time and effort I put into researching the topic and analyzing it in order to help the group not only understand the material but also for creating the animations. I hope that the others in the group had a similar experience as I did and that those who view our animation will have a little better understanding of cellular respiration. The final product will be very usef as a learning resource for students who either have a professor/teacher show them this animation during their curiculum or are doing research of their own.

Along the way there were several things that suprised me, during research, editing information, and about group dynamics. During the research I thought I would have been able to find all the information that I would need quite easily and I believed that I had a good grasp on understanding the material; I was mistaken. I read text book accounts, online sources, and even a few animations and all of which were at a different level of thinkings. It suprised me how information varied throughout these different sources making it very difficult to know which one's had the most accurate information that could be used for this project. On average it took me about 10 hours a week to find sources that were useable, needless to say there were a lot of "hit and misses." Then after collecting all the sources it was shocking how difficult it was to "weed out" the information that was either irrelevant to the material or was too far in depth than what we wanted to present. For each step with in Cellular Respiration it took me at least 2, if not more, hours to go through and edit the information to suit our purposes. Group dynamics was probably the thing that surprised me most. I thought we would work quite well together, we did for the most part, but after a while it seemed that individuals in the group were doing all of one aspect of the production but not even able to aid in another aspect either because they didn't want to or because they weren't allowed to.

I have always had a keen interest in service of the community since I was young. I volunteered at my scout group and school to do small things like highway clean up or canned food drive, things of that nature, and it has instilled in me a sense of pride in being able to help others. So I definantly see myself serviceing my future communities later in life with out a doubt.

Toilet Teacher Final Blog

During my service learning project, my group as well as I found what we had done very beneficial. We at first thought of doing the normal volunteering somewhere and get experience that way but then, because of the time we had a different idea. When we first started or brainstormed about what we could do for our project, most group members were sick. What we realized is that most people in our dorms were sick. We wanted to spread the knowledge about the common sicknesses found throughout the dorms. We decided to make posters that explained how you get a sickness, the symptoms, and how it’s treated and avoided. After our pamphlet was finished, we posted them on every stall in the bathroom in our dorm. We took this idea from the previous informational posters on the wall that we could all recite word by word. We also gave a presentation to a number of students from the dorms. Although the presentation may have been repetitive depending on how often they have bowel movements, or actually read our pamphlet, I think it was very educating to everyone. What we hoped everyone who witnessed our presentation, or read our pamphlet got from our project, was knowledge that would improve their health in the years to come. We hope that everyone left the bathroom a little smarter. Not only did other people learn something from our project, but my group members and I learned quite a bit as well. We all had a basic understanding of what causes you to get sick and how to treat it. We’ve all been sick with most of the sicknesses we chose, but researching more in depth we found there’s still a lot to know. We realized the actual virus that causes strep, what goes on with mono (WBC’s), and misconceptions about the cold. We got a better knowledge of these sicknesses which will benefit not only ourselves as we go through life, but our future families and friends as well. The one thing we wished we would have done differently was the sicknesses we chose. When we first began our project, it was middle of winter. This project has taught me a lot and I hope it helped others as much as it did to me. Obviously the kinds of sickness have changed from then till now but now at least they will have a better understanding of what to expect next winter. Overall, my group, and the people of our dorm will have a better understanding and a healthier life when it comes to common dorm room sicknesses.

The End Is Here

When we were first presented with the idea of service learning I’ll admit I was a little hesitant in wanting to do something like that. I thought it was going to be a pain to try and fit it into my schedule and that it would take away from the little free time that I actually have. However, this experience has greatly changed my life. I honestly didn’t know what to expect when I started volunteering at the Portage County Health Care Center. I knew that I would be spending time with people who have severe dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, but from what I knew about the disease’s I figured the residents wouldn’t be all there and it would sort of be like talking to someone who couldn’t respond.

These people have changed my life forever and a part of them will always stay with me. They opened my eyes to how fragile life really is; also that we basically take it for granted. We always say, “oh, well I’ll do it tomorrow” and we constantly put things off. We never say how we feel or speak the immediate truth. I think the most important thing I’ve learned from this experience is to live as if there is no tomorrow.
Each resident has affected me in a different way. I met a couple whose love has been tested by these horrible aliments and has not quavered once. I met a gentleman who may have trouble remembering my name, but can still remember every word to every Johnny Cash song. Also, I met the happiest guy in the world who I don’t think I’ve never seen frown, yet every night when it gets dark the dementia just eats away at him. I really thought that this would be such an easy task spending time with these people and getting credit for class, but each time I went I couldn’t wait to go back and it became something so much more than just a silly school assignment.

I’ve had an amazing time volunteering and I hold a special place in my heart for everyone that I’ve met thus far. The other people I work with are just as amazing as the residents and every Friday I look forward to getting up and going to see all of them. I’ve made some great friends and learned some things that will last me a life time. I plan on continuing to volunteer over the summer back home, and hopefully at Portage County when I come back next semester. This has been a wonderful opportunity and I’m extremely happy that it was an opportunity I was able to experience.

Last Rescue Post.

My last day at the horse rescue is quickly approaching, Hopefully when I return next year all my favorite horsey friends would have found a new home. Working at a horse rescue was hard, not only was it physically demanding, by scooping poop out of a dozen dirty stalls, hauling feed and hay halfway across the acreage... It also pulled some good mental strains. While working at the rescue I did see and hear some horrible things that people do to horses, and all critters. I wont even mention them here, but google "windchill foal" and you will see. At least two of the horses that came in when I was there were severely abused, one had limes disease and was horribly thin, the other was previously abused and terrified of men. They both, by the time I last visited had learned about how life can bring joy, and were happy for a pet or two, instead of shying away just weeks earlier. There were also 3 deaths since I started this project, one was an old barrel racing horse, TZ who had come to live out the rest of his days there and thats just what he did. I was going to photograph him for my project but he passed away before I could. The other two were mules that were very feral, and whom the owner (mary) was offering for free to anyone that had experience. They could not even vet the mules and they were living in pain and had to be put down as well. It yanked me towards the good and the bad, I cant help but think towards the positive side of things, that these horses will soon have a loving home of their own, and if they don't, Mary and company will love them enough for now.

I have learned many things through this project, one of the most important things though is that you can never know too much about horses. All this new information was just added onto everything piled on over the years. I became to realized that even though a horse is not rideable due to an injury does not mean its worthless, some of the horses there that are bound to just be pasture buddies have the most amazing personalities. I learned that the best tool in the world when a horse is charging at you is to whip your hand out and police halt them, works like a charm...if it fails, quickly roll under the fence. I learned that spring is not a photogenic season for horses. I also perfected my stall scooping skills.

My learning portion relating to biology was the study of horse colorations and than to produce a webpage with pictures to show this. I am working on some bugs in which I need to seek some technical outside advice, but I should plug in the finished project around saturday afternoon. With this bio portion it was really handy since I never really undertsood genetics, now I do, kinda. The final product can be seen here I am going to post the project on a few web forums, also add some more pictures throughout the next few weeks.

I think the biggest thing I can pull out of this is how I treat the horse I have for the summer, Red, who is a past rescue horse. An ex-racer. I spend alot of time working on the ground with him, thinking back to how it was on the ground that I gained trust and respect from those horses at the rescue. I also know that Red, isn't black like his registration papers say, rather looking closely at him I can tell he is a bay. A dark, dark bay. Though I cant tell the owners that I have leased him from, I think it would ruin their world knowing that he was just a plain ol' bay.

Homework Center Final Blog

For my final post I want to talk about what I’ve learned from this service learning project. If you didn’t already know, I volunteered at the Homework Center at Madison View Apartment complex in Stevens Point. The Homework Center is a non-profit organization that helps many low income families in the Stevens Point area by assisting children with their school work. I helped kids work on their homework and play games from six to eight every Thursday. I worked with a group of tutors and education majors to help children ranging from ages three to fourteen. We as tutors, would help anywhere from ten to twenty children every Thursday. Originally, I didn’t know what to expect going into this project. I usually don’t do well with younger kids and was not sure how I would react to working with these little kids for two hours. After my first few times of volunteering, all of the feelings of uncertainty went away. Most of the kids had finished their homework, so we played a lot of games. It was fun to interact with these little kids. I did help a few kids with their homework and I was pretty astounded to see how the curriculum has changed since I was in grade school. Some of the words that I remember helping a young man learn were pretty advanced; even for me. I really had a great time helping kids out with their work and playing board games with them. I now don’t feel as unsure of myself when I take care of kids. I regret to say that I didn’t really connect what I learned in class to the Homework Center. But, I believe this project was a great way to get involved in the community and help young people out. I thought what better way to break away from the normal routine of exams and projects than to positively impact the world around us. If I could make one change to my project, I would apply more of what I’ve learned in class to the service learning. I would have liked to have given a talk about some of the animals we’ve learned about, or even take the kids on a nature walk in Schmeekle or something. All in all, I loved my experience with the children at the homework center. I think this will be a valuable experience for me to have; just to help kids out, and to be like a role model for them is something I will not regret doing.

Humane society final blog

When I first started volunteering at the Humane Society, I was really actually kind of scared. I didn't know how the animals would react and I thought they might not be friendly with strange people. But my first time volunteering, changed my outlook on how the animals were. I did cat socialization during my time at the HS. Normally, I'm not a big fan of cats, but all they wanted was some attention and some love. Every time I walked into a room with cats, I instantly heard meowing and found myself with cats crawling all over me. This made me happy to see how much the animals appreciated the human interaction that they don't seem to get very often. I found this to be very beneficial for me because I learned to like cats. I was also able to change my view about how animals there are. I felt like I was able to help the cats find loving homes because a lot of times when I was in with them, people would stop and look at how the cat interacted with me. And last week, I saw my first adoption. I was sad to see Ditto go but I knew he was glad to leave by how fast he crawled into that carrier. There was one thing that I found very shocking during my time at the HS. One particular day, I overheard a phone call that one of the front desk employees made. She had made a phone call inquiring if the lady had lost a dog. The lady on the other end first asked how much the fine and after learning the price said that it wasn't her dog and that it was her dad's so she wasn't going to pay the fine so they could keep the dog. The lady wouldn't come to get her dog because of the cost of the fine and that made me wonder how many other animals were there because of that same reason. All of the employees are very friendly and very helping. Jennifer, the Executive Director, often checked to see how it was going and if I needed anything. The ladies at the front desk often helped me with any questions I had or helped me get a new cat to socialize with. I'm just glad that I'm able to help make a cat's life a little happier just by being there for them to cuddle with. I plan to continue my volunteer services throughout the summer and possibly into next school year.

Humane Society

In the past two months I have learned so much about the humane society. I learned how the humane society helps the animals, the public and is overall a very beneficial organization. During my time volunteering at the humane society, I learned how to care for the animals and work with other people. This was a growing experience for both the animals and myself because people don’t realize this but those animals see little to no human contact on a day to day basis. I could tell every time I went there how appreciative the animals were to just see me. It was interesting to see how the animals especially the dogs became so extremely excited when you opened the cage to get the leash on them. Every animal there had their own very unique personality and it was fun to get to know them. One that stands out in my head is the pitbull because pitbulls just look scary but it was probably the best behaved dog at the humane society. From this experience, I feel volunteering is a very good thing. I found myself actually wanting to go volunteer; it made me feel good about myself and relieved stress. I will most likely keep volunteering there next year. Something else I like about the humane society is that it saves stray animals that don’t have a home and give them to loving families. The humane society not only takes these animals off the streets but also hires good workers and volunteers to play and train these animals to be more friendly creatures so they will be more likely to be adopted. I hate seeing animals that have been abused or hurt so the humane society is a great place for these poor animals. During my time there, I noticed that there are some things that I would want to change to benefit the animals. First thing is that when you take one dog out all the other dogs bark, so I think maybe the cages shouldn’t be right next to each other. Another thing is that the cages are farley small so it is kind of sad to see the animals in those conditions. There are some problems with space especially outside because there is a small walking sidewalk that just loops around the building and there really isn’t any outdoor space for the dogs to just run around. The last thing I would change is that I think they should advertise more because I couldn’t even find it in the beginning and nobody knew where it was even Stevens Point residents. I think the people who work at the society are doing a great job and I really enjoyed working with them and the animals.