A Little Cooking and A Big Parachute

On Friday morning I made my way over to the health care facility. When I got there I was told that we would be making cookies for the first hour. I went around and rounded up as many of the residents as I could that wanted to participate. I'm starting to see that the same residents are the ones coming to the activity times. It does not seem like many of the others really want to even bother coming because they either see no point, or they just have no idea what is going on and cannot comprehend anything. After making the cookies we made our way over to the larger activity room to play with a huge parachute to get their upper muscles working. Every one of the residents that I've met so far are confided to a wheelchair, so the nurses and staff try their hardest to make sure that the residents exercise some part of their body. While playing with the parachute I was talking with one of the staff members about one of the residents that was particularly enjoying this activity. He seemed so happy and had the biggest smile across his face the entire time. I pointed this out to the staff member, after which she informed me that he suffered from something called sundown. Sundown is a condition very common in dementia patients, it occurs when it starts to become dark out and the patient will start to become very aggressive and moody. They get sad and depressed and do not understand where they are or why they are there. I really enjoy spending time with the residents but it is starting to take a toll on my emotions. It’s really hard to watch these people suffer like this.

Volunteer with Children

On Friday April 11th I finally got the chance to go to the daycare in the CPS building. It was so cool to walk into the classroom/daycare. It is set up like a classroom but is like a daycare. I walked in an immediately talked to the head teacher who is Lorrie Richardson. My title is assistant teacher but I basically just play with the kids and help them go to each little area. There is play time at first when the children arrive and then there are many different areas for them to go to and you just walk with them and work in the area with them. It is so nice to see the children get amazed by the smallest things, it really makes me smile. Right when I began to play with all of the little children two little girls got connected to me right away. This was a great way to start off volunteering there. I cant wait for the next time.

Where Debot Goes

For my service learning project that I am doing with Tyler G. and Adam G. is "Where Debot Goes." We are making a model of the digestive system and going to be telling people about what happens when you eat food from Debot. We will be set up in the HEC and telling people that stop by our area where the model is. I am working on this project to help people better understand what happens to the eat they eat from Debot and tell them whether the food they are eating it health for them or not. We are planning to show and tell people this in the HEC when most students are heading to lunch and dinner that are walking through the HEC. I hope to learn more about how our digestive system absorbs nutrients and to learn more about what foods we need to eat to keep it us and our digestive tract healthy.

Central Wisconsin Children's Museum

The Central Wisconsin Children's Museum, is located within the Stevens Point "Mall". Together with Tyler Nigon and Adam Schultz we will be going each week to inform young children of different types of animals. Basically what we will be doing is having a short (30 mins. at most) presentation of something relating to animals. We will then follow up the presentation with an activity of some sort. Our first week we were thinking of discussing the migration of birds or something relating to birds. Then for our activity will be making pine cone bird feeder for them to hang outside in spring. Our main objective is to let the kids have fun, while still learning interesting facts. I am especially excited to work with children because I am hoping to be in the dentistry field working with kids someday.

Teaching at the Children’s Museum

For my service-learning project, I will be volunteering at the Central Wisconsin Children’s Museum with Amy Simmons and Adam Schultz. We will be using our time to teach the children about basic animal concepts such as the things different animals eat and where they like to live. Since they are younger children, we are also planning several short activities we could do with them such as different arts and crafts projects. Personally, I think I will get a lot out of this volunteer work because when I help others in the community, I usually get a great feeling of gratification. I believe this experience will especially help me after I graduate, because it will give me a different perspective on how I talk to younger children to maybe get them interested in the profession I am pursuing. I am definitely looking forward to working with these children, and I think it will be a great experience for everyone in our group, and most of all I think that the children will really like it.

Fun at the childrens museum

For my service learning project i will be going to the childrens museum in downtown Stevens Point with amy simmons and tyler nigon. we will be going there to teach the children about animals in a fun ways. i think that this will be a fun project getting to work with kids and all. this will really help out in my career choice as well. i want to become a teacher after college so working with kids in this project will look really good on an application. we plan on teaching the kids about various animals from birds to cows and we will have projects for them to keep them excited and interested.

Volunteer with Children

My service project is not for sure yet because I am waiting to hear back from the hospitals, and I may have to call a few daycares. I would love to work with children and volunteer reading books or playing games with them at hospitals. I would like to do this because in my future career I would like to work as a physical therapist that specializes in pediatrics. Growing up children have always been a part of my life and I would like to keep it that way. I plan on going to a hospital or even a daycare at least once a week and just playing with the children. I hope that this helps me figure out that this is what I really what I would like to do in the future. I am really excited to start volunteering where ever that may be.

Living with Dementia

For my service-learning project I will be volunteering at the Portage County Health Care Center. Here I will spend time with older people who suffer from dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Many of the people in the home are very unaware of where they are and how they got there. Also because they are getting along in their later years many of them have difficulty hearing. So what I hope to get out of this experience is to have a better understanding of how people get dementia and how they have to live with it. I want to get to know the residents of this home and spend some good quality time having fun and trying to enjoy life with these people. Also hopefully learning to be heard by a deaf person.

Dorm Sickness

For my service learning project, I am teaming up with Chris, Eric, and I now believe Kyle. We are going to help inform people living in the dorms of common infections students and fellow peers can’t contract while living in close contact in a dorm. We are looking to enhance the knowledge and understanding of not only other people, but ourselves as well. We want to inform people of the symptoms that go hand in hand with many of the sicknesses so people can quickly recognize influenza, or mono, or in worst case scenarios possibly STD’s. We look to achieve this by first doing some research and then making posters which we will post on doors and walls or dorms. We also look to put up bulletins in the stalls of the bathroom because if you’re taking care of business reading our bulletin is inevitable. I hope to learn more about sicknesses through this project and at the same time, better other people as well.

Cellular Respiration

I am collaborating with Cody Linjer and Liz Westberg for this service learning project. The plan for this project is to create an animation video of cellular respiration, taking it step by step in an entertaining presentation complete with voiceovers from the three of us and using Photoshop along with a video player. This animation will be used to help students at various ages to understand cellular respiration and to help teachers with an easy to use presentation to help explain the process. I will learn several things by the end of this project: understand more about cellular respiration, gain the ability to use a few new computer programs and the ability to make a useful presentation that will more likely than not help me in the future.

This week I have been researching cellular respiration more in depth and have been going over the basic functions and uses of the programs we will be using during development. Also, I have been thinking about the different ways in which we could present the information….thinking about different animations and ways to keep everyone’s attention.

Sturgeon Patrol

Every spring in Wisconsin on the Wolf River the sturgeon come to spawn. The wolf river is the only place in North America where the public can come and view this event. This is also the time when the sturgeon is the most vulnerable to poachers. Chad Leanna and I are going to volunteer our time for our service learning project patrolling the shores of the Wolf River making sure that nobody harasses the sturgeon during this very important time in their reproductive cycle, while they are spawning. We are going to be doing this through the Oshkosh DNR and will be taking a night shift from 7 pm to 7 am because we have classes during the day. The job entails taking a post on the shoreline and watching for people who could attempt to interrupt the fish during their run to spawn. This should be a great opportunity to learn about the reproduction of fish and more about these prehistoric animals.

Humane Association

For my service learning project I am going to work at the Humane Society. I am volunteering for the humane society because I believe that animals that don’t have home deserve the same attention as the animals that have a nice family to live with. Animals are like humans and deserve some where to live, eat, and someone to take care of them. I am going to go there with Vicki and Lynnea to work with the animals. When I am working with the animals I might have to feed them, walk them, or even pick up there waste. Some animals can even go to nursing homes to visit people who don’t have an animal to interact with. These animals can help keep people happy by playing with them and entertaining them. When I am working with the animals I hope to see how they can interact with me and other people. I hope to help the animals by interacting with them and also keeping them healthy. I want to know if different animals treat people the same way or if they only favor certain people. Also, a big part in this volunteering is to interact with the other employees. People are mammals too and have different ways to treat animals. It will be interesting to see the different techniques many people use.

Portage County Humane Society

I have not yet heard back from the Humane Society but I still plan on volunteering there. There are numerous opportunities that are available. But there are two types that i would like to partake in: Kennel/ quality time volunteers where I would take a dog for a walk or groom it or spend time with a cat/kitten; there is also a pet therapy opportunity where pets are taken to visit senior citizens or shut-in patients. What I am hoping to learn from this experience is behaviors of different animals and how they interact with people in their environment. I am also hoping that I can help to provide a better quality of life for these animals that need a home.

Humane Society

For the service learning project I will be going to the humane society to do some volunteer work. I am planning on helping out the animals there by feeding them or taking them for a walk or something. I have never volunteered for anything like this before so I am not sure what it is going to be like. The reason I am doing this is because for the service learning project that we have to do for this class this seemed like one of the things might be not that bad to do. I like animals so I am hoping it will be alright. I plan to go to the humane society for 2 hours every weekend while we are doing this assignment. I hope that my doing this assignment I will be able to learn some more things about animals and how I can help out by just giving a little of my time.

Sturgeon Patrol

For the service learning project Andy Kramer and I are going to volunteer to be sturgeon guards. What sturgeon guards do is protect the sturgeon from illegal harvest or harassment by people. This is in late April and early May. The sturgeon come up the Wolf River to spawn. The Wolf River is the only place in North America where the public can view sturgeon spawning. During spawning the fish are extremely vulnerable to poaching because they are more focused on reproducing. To do this we have to volunteer online through e-mail with the Oshkosh DNR office. We will most likely be running a nightshift because we have classes during the day. While doing this project I hope to expand my knowledge of the sturgeon spawning process and also to get some background with working with fish. Since I am a fisheries major I think that this project will not only benefit my resume` but I think that it is a great opportunity to learn about the field itself.

Service Learning in Schmeekle

For this service project, I am teaming up with Lauren Wood. What we hope to do is some volunteer work in Schmeekle by helping out in any way they need us. Whether it be picking up litter, clearing trails, or just grooming the area in other ways, we want to help make Schmeekle cleaner and more enjoyable for the people who come to enjoy nature.

The main reason we are doing our service project in Schmeekle, like Lauren said, is because neither of us have access to a car so we had to do something within walking distance. Even so, we are both interested in the environment and how we can help conserve it, so this project will help us do that.

I'm looking forward to doing this project because not only will I be doing good for nature, I will also be learning about the environment. I have only been to Schmeekle once, so it will be fun to see what's all in there and check out some cool animal wildlife as well! Hopefully once we get going, we will maybe even see how our efforts have benefited the environment in different ways.

Where Debot Goes

For my service learning project I am working with Tyler Gagner and Ian Armstrong on “Where Debot Goes.” We are making a model of a human digestive system and then we are going to have a display set up in the HEC to tell about it. I am working on this project because most people don’t know what happens after they eat or even what they need to eat in order to feel better about themselves. I would plan on showing our display that we made to people in the HEC when they are going to and from lunch at Debot mostly. We would have some type of food/drink to give out to get people’s attention. I know that I will learn more about a human’s digestive system in this project and also hope to show other people on campus a little about the human digestive system too.

Alzheimer's Project

For my service learning project, I'm volunteering at an Alzheimer's and dementia home. I work at this place, but I never really get to spend time just being with the residents. This will be a great opportunity to get to know them better and hopefully brighten their day. I think it is so sad that their lives are ending this way, and most of the residents don't have many family or friends left, so they can get really lonely. Before I go and give my time, I'm going to study Alzheimer's and learn more about the disease, the stages, and what symptoms I can expect to see. Twice a week I'll be going to the home which houses about 20 residents and spend time with them doing activities and socializing. I want to help the residents, and make their day a little better by having fun with them. I also want to gain a better understanding of the Alzheimer's, dementia, and the aging process first hand by spending time with these people.

Dorm Sickness

For my service learning project, I am teaming up with Eric and Jason. We are coming up with posters and a presentation to give to kids about common diseases and sicknesses that they can catch from living in the dorms. I am doing this project because there are a lot of diseases and sicknesses that atudents can catch in the dorms if they are not aware of them. We hope to get out of it that students will protect themselves better while living in the dorms and not getting sick.

Cancer Patients

For my service learning project, I will be volunteering with hospice services either in the Stevens Point Area or through the hospital in my home town. For those of you who don't know, people involved with hospice are not nurses, but when someone is dying they can give them pain medication and basically keep them as comfortable as possible as they are dying. I plan to spend at least an hour or two a week visiting with one of these hospice patients, and hopefully I will be able to learn more about their illnesses and teach them a few things also. When I find out what the patient is suffering from, I will research all that I can in order to be able to answer any questions that they might have. I am doing this because I want to be a doctor, particularly an Oncologist (cancer), and I'm hoping to learn more and learn how to interact with people that suffer from things like cancer. I will also be learning on my own about what they are suffering from as I research it independently.

Service-learning project

For my service-learning project, I am going to be going to an elementary school in my hometown and teach them about the different kingdoms. I am going to have a lesson plan each time that deals with a different topic under kingdoms and have the students be able to interact with me and do some pretty fun things. I chose this as my service-learning project because I work at a daycare and have been working there for about 5 years now. I already know what it is like to teach children and what they think is fun. I know I will be dealing with older children than what I have dealt with before and I expect it to be different than what I have done in the past. I plan on going to the elementary school in my hometown on Fridays and teach for about two hours or more. I will go back a few times and be able to get to know the students. What I hope to get out of this experience is a better understanding of how to teach younger children. Learn to know what they like and what they do not like about what I am teaching them.

Humane Society

For my service learning project I will be volunteering at the Humane Society in Portage County with Vicki and Steph Wolf. We will be involved in socializing with cats and dogs and just giving these animals attention and care. We will be socializing with cats through personal contact and grooming. When working with the dogs, we will play with them, walk them, and wash them. I chose to help out here because it seems like it will be a lot of fun, and I love working with animals. I will get to play with animals while also helping the community. Through this service project, I hope to learn many new things about different animals and how they interact with one another. This experience will help me understand how animals' behaviors change depending on the people and the environment it is in. I hope to help the community and the animals at the Humane Society by volunteering. I can definitely see myself continuing to work at the Humane Society in the future.

YMCA service learning

For my service learning project I am volunteering at the Stevens Point YMCA in their youth sports. I am going to help them plan and carry out what they are doing with the children to celebrate Earth day. Also, I will help coach and referee some athletic activities. I played many sports, but all the skills I learned came from someone else. I hope to be that person for some of these kids. I also hope to gain skills that will help me relate to children better and be able to communicate with parents as someday I want to work at Children's Hospital of Milwaukee. I m going to volunteer because I have been to a few sports camps were the people who instructed volunteered. They cared more because it was their time and they weren't getting paid so there were there for the love of the game and to make other people better. I am excited to start because I like playing sports and working with kids. This will help me in my field of study too.

Service Learning

For my service learning project, I am going to be doing some work with the UWSP TWS. I am working out the wrinkles right now but I am trying to do a little research with the deer capturing, I talked to the group leader and he said that he was going to be doing one more trapping session for us. I also am looking into going with the TWS and working with them and the Praire Chickens. I have to attend a meeting in a couple weeks to go and learn how to take notes and keep observation notes to keep a count of how many and such, which we would then turn our research into the DNR for them to use with there numbers. It should be fun and I look forward to starting it.

Humane Society

For my service learning project im going to be working at the Humane Society in Portage with Steph Wolf and Lynnea Chelmo. The reason this caught my interest is because I have never been able to have a dog because of my moms lack of belief in my abilities to take care of one. So any opportunity to walk my friends dogs or play with the neighbors I always take. I also truly do enjoy animals they are so gentle and kind. What we will be doing is we will be taking care of the Cats and Dogs that have been turned into the Humane Society. The job will include us washing and walking the dogs and cats. We have to go through an orientation to do so but it will be worth it because our hope is to help the community by doing this. We will be providing care to the animals that will be providing so much love and joy to the surrounding area. We discussed and all agree that this service learning project is definately something we all could see ourselves continuing in the future beyond just the service learning project.

Common Dorm Sicknesses

My service learning project is dealing with common sicknesses that many students that live in the dorms may be exposed to. Our job is to research many of these sicknesses and keep students in our dorms aware of what they are, how they effect you, and what you can do to prevent them. We will be putting up posters and fliers in our dorms promoting healthy practices and letting students know what symptoms may be like and how to properly protect themselves. Also we will be doing an informational night in my dorm where people can come an ask questions and be informed that way as well. Hopefully we will be able to learn about some of the sicknesses ourselves because there is so much out there that students in dorms are exposed to. Our goal is to make ourselves and other students more aware of what kinds of diseases and sicknesses are around them. Hopefully making a healthier community.

Cellular Respiration Project

For my service-learning project I am collaborating with Liz Westberg and Steven Thompson to create a visual animation of cellular respiration. We are going to create a presentation that can enhance learning and understanding for students. Our hope is that teachers will use this tool in class with ease and that students will gain a better understanding for the process of cellular respiration. I am looking forward to this project not only for the community and group element but to learn more about cellular respiration myself. I have already begun to research more specific information on the topic to ensure that our presentation is accurate and appropriate. There’s no better way to learn something than to teach somebody else. When the animation project is finished, it will be available via the Internet as a learning source for student’s school projects or class discussions. Liz, Steven, and I have started to take roles in collectively adding information to the project through research, information, and computer programming.

Disease and sickness prevention

My service-learning project involves educating UWSP students about diseases and sicknesses that are common in the dorms. We will be creating posters to hang up in dorms about various sicknesses and diseases and ways they can be prevented. We will also be creating informational pages to be placed in bathroom stalls where people will actually read them. After all this is completed we will be holding an educational seminar in a dorm about the sicknesses and diseases covered.

What I hope to get out of this project is the feeling of teaching other people and I want to learn myself.

Cellular Respiration Animation

I am working in a group with the very awesome Cody Linjer... and Steven Thompson. The three of us are going to create an animation depicting the process of cellular respiration. We will write and record the voiceovers ourselves, as well as plan out and animate it using photoshop and most likely iMovie (as none of us know how to make a flash animation, and we haven’t got the time to learn). The finished animation is projected to be between 3 and 5 minutes long, and will be posted on youtube, where the link will be forwarded to the whole Biology department, and all the bio teacher’s we have had, asking for feed back, and for them to pass it on.

For now we are all just researching cellular metabolism, and trying to gather ideas on how we want to present this. Cody knows her way around photoshop, but earlier, I gave a crash course on photoshop and imovie to Steven, so he can help with the grunt work. We made a seven second loop of a potassium ion entering a cell with the help of a protein pump. It took us 45 minutes. I am looking into better software I may have at home to eliminate the need for about half the stills.

Schmeekle....

I am partnered Sarah Fahrenkrug and together we will be volunteering our services at the Schmeekle Reserve Center. We will help out in whatever way we can, whether that be cleaning up litter or keeping trails clean. I am not sure exactly what they will have us do because it seems they are reluctant to answer their phone. However when we hear back from them, we will be more informed about how we can help.

Sarah and I chose this activity for a number of reasons. The one main reason is because our limited mobility. We both don't have cars, so we can't travel far. Another reason for it is because I enjoy being outdoors and exploring the environment. I myself have never fully explored Schmeekle, so it will be fun to inspect the new area. The last reason why I found this activity to be interesting was because I want to keep the environment clean, as cliché as it sounds.

I hope to get a lot out of this experience. Firstly a even better respect for my environment, as well as to learn the detrimental affects of pollution and how a healthy environment can flourish.

Deer Project

For my service learning project I will be working with the Deer Project that is run here at Stevens Point through the Wildlife Society. The deer project works mainly with the deer that live on campus (in Schmeekle mostly) and the surrounding areas. I decided to work on this project because I had already been out trapping deer with the project a couple of times already and knew it would be a great opportunity for my service learning project. What I will be specificly doing is working with the deer project's leader to help him trap, collar and monitor the deer. I will also be helping out with the maintenance of the traps and any other jobs that need to be completed to help the project run smoothly. I am excited about this project and hope to get a good understanding of what goes into a project like this and how I can get involved in the future. I would really like to become a project leader myself and be in charge of my own project in the next couple of years. This service learning project will help me get my foot in the door to become a project leader.

Equine Pigments

My service-learning project is going to be studying equine pigments at the local horse rescue. St. Francis horse rescue is a non-profit organization that I have been volunteering for since late November. It intrigues me mainly because it has been something that interests me that there could be so many color variations that emerge from just a few base colors. The service portion is the volunteering part, along with free advertisement for the facility, and use of the pictures for promotional purposes. The learning portion is creating a comprehensive guide to what causes the different coat colors, which will be developed into a website. Along with extending my knowledge about the organization and critters in general. The process would be to tour the facility and identify 8-10 coat colors and then determine what causes these colors. For example, Agouti produces a Bay coat, when it is the dominant gene, then the black coloring extends to the different points of the horse (legs, mane, tail, ear rims). If the Agouti is recessive, then black is uniformly distributive around the horse, creating an all black horse. Then to photographs the highlight points (body and key points). Then create a comprehensive webpage that combines the information. Already I have run into a few snags in my project, since it is a facility that has adoptable animals I have to work fast to claim the critters for my project before they find their forever homes, another hardship is that since its also a retirement facility for the horses that are too sick to be adopted out, there is the possibility that they may pass away before I get a picture. Which is the case for one of my black pigment examples. Fortunately, I have already gotten the pictures of the horses that now have new homes.

Edit: I guess I should add what I plan on getting out of this on a personal point rather then all the other scientific stuff. I find that volunteering, even though it is just scooping poop, feeding, giving some good TLC to critters that have had a rough past, and soon a hopeful future. Coming from a home with alot of critters, and my volunteer job back there I needed someplace to work off some debot and get my critter fill. So doing this project will proceed to keep me at a stable point of mind along with teaching me new skills about horses and how society reacts to creatures such as these (in good and bad ways)

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A few references since, I’m sure few of you have no idea what I am going on about…
Horse pigments is a gateway into what the text version of the final webpage will include, among other things, it explains what genes cause what horse coat colors.

St. Francis Horse Rescue, located in Rosholt WI, is where I will be sampling horse coats and determine what color pigments are showing.