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.