fun at the childrens museum

Today my group which includes tyler nigon and amy simmons went down to the childrens museum and worked with the kids and talked to them about birds. we had a fun project for them which was making bird feeders with pinecones, peanut butter, and bird seed. most of the kids came and went which we didnt expect so much. we planned on talking to a group and then letting them build the feeders but this didnt happen. instead we each talked to the kids about birds as they built there own feeders. it was really interesting to hear what they knew about birds wether it was true or not. we talked to them about where they lived and wuth kinds of birds they knew. we also talked about some of the more common types of birds like ducks and geese and morning doves. i was aslo suprised as to how much they wanted to learn by asking questions. it was a lot of fun to do, even the parents thought it was fun. they thought it was a great project for the kids especially since we talked to them about birds. it was a big mess playing with the peanut butter and seed. peanut butter got all over, my hands were coverd with it and seed and looked like a bird feeder themselves. it was also pretty funny cause a couple of the younger kids one boy in particular keep trying to eat the peanut butter off of the pine cones while they were putting it on.

Children's Museum

Today at the children's museum, my group and I went in to talk to the children about birds. We did not have an organized presentation like we expected, but instead the children came in at their leisure. When the kids came in we talked about migration habits of different species of birds like robins and Canadian geese. The kids had a fun time talking about the birds and their different habits while we worked on the project. For the project we had pine cones that the children covered with peanut butter and bird seed that they made and could take home to hang on a tree. We told them to watch their feeders and see how many different species of birds they could get to come eat off of it. They were very excited to make their feeders, but the peanut butter was a huge mess! We all had a great time, and I had more fun teaching the kids about birds and helping them make bird feeders than I originally thought I would. Amy took some pictures of us and the kids while we were working with them that she has posted under her blog.

Cleaning Schmeekle

This week, Lauren and I took a walk out to Schmeekle to see what we are dealing with. When we got there, we discovered that the area is still quite flooded from the snow. However, we did observe a few animals like a rabbit, a duck in a puddle, and a couple of birds, which could suggest that they are migrating back in for spring. It's very interesting being out there at the turn of the season to observe how the environment and life in it is changing. When we walked around a little more, we noticed that there was indeed a lot of litter. We picked up what we could see, but I'm sure that once the snow is completely gone we will find more. It was fun just to walk through some of the trails and survey the plants and animals while helping make the environment a little cleaner and more pleasant for them.

Children's Museum

Today we went to the Children's Museum and our subject was birds. We were hoping that the kids would come all at one time and we could do a short presentation and then we could do our project, but the kids came and went so instead we did the project and while we were working on it we talked to them about birds. They were eager to tell us about the birds that they have in their backyards and the many colors and sizes that they have seen.

We didn't get many action shots with the kids because it was a flat out mess. We took pine cones and had them cover them in peanut butter and then they poured bird seed on the peanut butter. We also had attached strings to the pine cones so that they can hang them from trees in their yards to feed the birds. We literally had peanut butter up to our elbows while trying to help them. It was messy, but definitely fun.

I was surpised that alot of parents had never seen this type of bird feeder before. They were really excited that they finally had a purpose for all of the pine cones in their yards and they thought it was a great idea to get their kids interested in birds.

We also had books about birds that we rented out from the library for the kids to look at before or after they did their projects. I had alot more fun than I originally thought I would. Next week we're going to an Autism Night that is held by the Children's Museum.

Where Debot Goes #2

Our project on “Where Debot Goes” is coming along. Right now we are in the information gathering stages. I found an extremely helpful website that tells all about the human digestive system, all the parts, a detailed description of all of the parts and the problems that can go wrong with each part or problems patients have had. We are planning on for sure having a few informational posters to show the digestive system and maybe we will make a model to show a more 3-D view. We also plan on getting a hold of someone in the HEC so we can put our project on display. Soon we are going to get together to combine all of the information that we have found and then we will start working on the posters and the potential model. I really think I will learn a lot about some of the problems that you hear people have with their digestive system and overall it will be a good experience.

Dorm Sickness

Like Chris and Eric both have already said, our project is coming along. We found a lot of good facts that we are interested in, its now just a matter of choosing which ones to use. The pamphlets are about ready to be printed which means completion is near and toilet users will become more knowledgeable and amused. I like working with these men, a lot of fun, and we work together which is nice to have from a group. Soon our pamphlets will be coming to a toilet stall near you!

Dorm sicknesses

Reasearch on our common dorm sicknesses is going ahead as planed. We have been able to narrow our search down to the more common sicknesses. There is alot of information and it is a little overwellming but we are making go progress. We have already started and are close to finishing our bathroom pamphlets but we are trying to think of ways to make the pamphlets alittle more exciting so people want to read them. One of the challenges that we have run across so far is trying to put the information we have collected into laymens terms so that people will understand the material. We are thinking of ways to make it a little more appealing to the eye aswell, which might include some pictures here and there. Other than a few bumps in the road everything is going well.

Humane Society

This week, I went to the humane society with Vicki Bieschke. We spent an hour and a half at the center playing with the many animals. There were so many animals to play with including dogs, cats, rabbits, and even ferrits. We first played with the kittens because young animals need a lot of attention. I played with these fun and highly energized kittens by spinning a cat rope around and letting them chase it. I made sure all of the kittens were running around. Then, we went to the bunnies, and I held the white bunny for a little bit. After a while, it got a little scared, so I put it back in its cage. Next, we took out a few of the older cats and let them run around and play with one another. Lastly, we desided to walk the two black lab puppies. They were so cute and had a lot of energy from being locked in their cages for so long. It was hard to get a collar on both of the labs because they both ganged up on me in their cage. When we finally got them outside, the collar didn't fit one of the labs, and he almost escaped. Volunteering at the humane society was so fun, and I learned a lot about animals.

When Pigments Attack!

This project has proven to be great and grand, inside and out. So far I have collected over 200 pictures, but maybe about 50 of them are good, and not all of them are of the project material. Its the sloppy mid season, (spring) so all the horses are all muddy and gross looking so I have to go out with a brush and try to clean them up, that sometimes fails within itself as well. So thats a challenge that I have run into. We are having quite a bit of fun though, I go volunteer with my friend Lauren, so because I have to have her keep the critters attention while I take pictures we tend to spend 2/3 of our time running around in the pastures saying hello to everyone and then taking pictures. Then only about an hour and a half feeding and scooping poop. Which is pretty joyous.

Over the time that I have started this project, (even though I have been volunteering for a few months prior) the facility has found new homes for about 8 horses, and since then they have gotten about 6 new horses, including one that is getting over lymes disease, which can happen to horses too.. Alot of the horses that come in have been abused or poorly trained, though a few that come in have no background stories, and were just given up because the owner didn't want to go through the lifetime commitment of owning a horse. Which means in the sense of this project that its more opportunities to get colors! Since most of the horse population is this foundation color called Bay, about 70% of the horses at the farm are this color. So since I needed some of the rarer colors, Liz so kindly offered to take me up to where she worked so we could roam with those critters and get some of the colors that my rescue didn't have, such as roan, and silver dapple, I was quite happy.

As for the webpage portion, I have it all designed, and few things are filled in. Since I stole the html off the page I coded for my online portfolio, some of the coding disagreed with how I wanted to write a lot. So after fighting with it for a few days, I decided to cheat and write the things I needed within the image, so it would be a text and image combo thing. So if you guys want to check it out its at http://fadedoak.com/uwsp (click projects to get to well, the project..) there are two thumbnails in the right corner, the first one doesn't work because I have had it with trying to figure it out before this is due. But I wanted to give you all a taste of what its planned on looking like.

I realized that this project is going to take possibly far over the required time to spend on it, but its something that will also be useful to a whole lot of people and such.

Oh yes, the pictures included, because everyone likes pictures The first one is of the new horse that came in, who is an excellent example of how no one is clean..

And then the second one is of my lovely assistant and another filthy horse.

Then out of pure entertainment, "Mustang Sally" who was really happy and jumping all about, and a how horses can be completely airborne...

Cellular Respiration: 2

This past week I finished researching the subject and have looked at quite a few different illustrations gathering ideas to put together the animation. Some of the illustrations we might even be able to use in the animation, that I believe will help give a big picture of things in a better way than I thought we could do by ourselves. I have also put together a list of the main steps in cellular respiration that are necessary to cover at any level, I tried to keep things simple enough for a large target area to understand the information provided. I haven't and won't be able to meet with the rest of my group until next week, due to work conflicts, but I will be trying to sending an e-mail to them so that they can use the information I have gathered to start working on a story board....which the last I knew will be the basis for the animation.

Service Learning - Day 1

Monday I started my service learning project at the YMCA in Stevens Point. I got to help kids ages 3-12 use weight lifting equipment. I thought this was dangerous, as I had always been taught that lifting before puberty was detrimental to growth and could make people permanently short. Marissa, the person in charge of the Family Prime Time fitness section, showed me that the kids cannot lift more than their own body weight. The machines are designed to convert the weight of the kids to a certain level of resistance so the kids cannot strain of otherwise injure themselves. Some of the kids are pretty new to the machines, so Marissa had to take them through every machine and show them how to do the exercise correctly. This actually took quite a long time. I had to try it, as it looked like it would be really easy. It wasn't. It is actually a good workout. I also learned that the YMCA has a large family event planned for Earth Day and I will be able to work with them during the entire activity, so I am pretty excited. I really enjoyed my couple of hours in the Y and am looking forward to doing it again next week.

Deer Project

As I mentioned in my first post I am working with The Wildlife Society and the deer project in specific. I may have to find other opportunities however, as deer trapping may soon be coming to an end as the weather gets warmer and does begin to drop their fawns. The goal of the deer project is to monitor and learn more about the deer herd that lives in Schmeekle and the nearby areas. This is done in large part through radio collaring. Radio collaring allows for tracking of the deer which can tell a lot about its habits and life style. Right now we are trying to get more radio collars on deer through trapping. There are two types of traps that the deer project uses to try to capture deer. The first is a basic box trap. The trap has doors on both ends and is baited in the middle with corn, when the deer enters so far into the trap it trips a wire that closes both doors. The box traps are left open nearly all week and we check them at 7am and 8pm. The other type of trap is a drop net. This type of trap takes a little more work. It is a large net held up on ten foot poles. Volunteers sit in a nearby blind and when the deer move to the bait in the center of the net it is dropped. The deer must then be tackled, blindfolded and radio collared. So far I have not been present for the collaring of any deer although we had deer near the net one night only to be scented by a doe that had moved down wind of us. Overall, it is a very exciting project and I am hopeful that I will get to tackle and collar a deer.

Cellular Respiration On Track

This week we acquired a new teamster to help out with the service learning project. Steph will now be apart of our Cellular Respiration project and we are happy to have the addition. The past two weeks have been spent doing more specific research on the steps of cellular respiration in hopes of finding difinitive stages that are clear-cut and easy to understand. Stephen and Liz are mapping out how to animate these steps by making each slide a PDF file. Since we now have another group member we will meet next week again to make sure everyone is on track with their assigned work. Our goal is to have the steps planned out by next week as accurately and efficient as we can and continue work on steps to animation. Once we have an outline of exactly what we are showing on the slideshow, we will be able to come up with a script for the educational component of the animation. This is definitely going to be a lot of work but the end product is going to be great!

Cellular Respiration-new group

I just switched groups due to a problem with volunteering at the humane society. I will now be working with Cody, Liz, and Steven. We have not meet yet but plan on meeting this week to catch me up in what they have already started. We will be doing a animation video of cellular respiration. We will be using video and photo shop to create this presentation. The presentation can be used to help many people of all ages to better understand how the process works. We hope this will help teacher so they can use it in there classes to present to the students. I am starting to look up information and diagrams on cellular respiration to help the group. I hope I learn and master how this processes works myself. I also hope I learn some more technology of computers so I can make more videos. This should be very interesting and helpful to many.

Bingo!

For my project I am working with people with Alzheimer's and dementia. Alzheimer's happens in stages, and at this place most of the residents are in the final stages. They can't function on their own and need help with bascially everything: bathing, eating, and dressing. They can still talk, but a lot of the time it doesn't make any sense because they talk about past events and people as if they are happening now. A good way to picture them is think of a toddler in an elderly person's body. It is extremely hard to see people like this, its sad and frustrating at the same time. It's very hard to remember they are still people, and they once had lives just like you and me.

I played bingo with the residents for activity last week. I was nervous because I didn't think they would understand what to do. They did really well though, especially one resident in particular. She can't dress herself, feed herself, or even move herself. But when it came to bingo she was a pro. She put all the chips in the right places without me helping her, and it was great seeing that she still had some cognitive ability.

I also gave the residents a snack, a vanilla wafer bar. Their response to these bars was overwhelming. They all thanked me and some said "Oh I love you!" It was such a little gesture, but I felt like I made their whole day because they were so excited. One resident however looked at me with confusion when I gave her a bar. She asked me, "Waht do I do with this?" I told her to eat it, but she still didn't get it, so I had to motion a gesture as if I were eating, and she understood and ate it. It was hard to see this old woman not understand how to eat, but seeing the other residents so excited about the snack really makes this project enjoyable and meaningful to me.

Dorm Awareness

Research is going really good on our common dorm sicknesses. The amount of information is a little more than expected but we are getting through it ok. The hard part is finding the information that we want to convey to our fellow students that is understandable. We are making good progress and our bathroom pamphlets are almost ready to go up. We are thinking of ways to make it a little more appealing to the eye and also to make it a little more fun to read. I think throwing in some fun facts along with it will help. Other than that everything is going really good and we are working really well together.

Cleaning Schmeekle

Due to the weather, we are not yet able to fully help out at Schmeekle until it gets warmer. But Sarah and I figured we could at least do a little help, even if it isn't official. We went to Schmeekle and took some observations and thought of some ideas that we could do to help. One big thing we notice and wasn't really expecting, was the amount of litter. I am sure we will find even more when the snow melts. The effect of pollution on the environment can be devastating so we want to do as much as possible.

Another thing we noted was the return and awakening of some animals. Along the trail we noticed many birds chirping and a lot of rabbit droppings. This is definitely a sign that spring is on its way. Catching the eye of some ducks swimming in a puddle of what use to be a nature trail, certainly tells us that we have got some work cut out for us.

Humane Society Day One

Yesterday I went to the humane society with Lynnea Chelmo for my fist volunteer opportunity. We stayed for about an hour in a half. When we got there Lynnea and I did not know where to start. When we looked around there were so many animals that just looked like they needed some love. So what we did was we spent a little time with all the different types of animals they had. First we started with the kittens. We played with them and made sure to get them all moving. Lynnea played the with the wild one of the bunch as I held the lazy super cute one. The next thing we did was move onto the bunny. The bunny was a little skirmish so after a while we put him away because he seemed to want to go back into his cage. The cat cages are right by the bunny room so we hit that up next and let some cats out to play with they were all very social and nice. The last and most exciting adventure we went on was walking the two puppies they were so cute and innocent looking. But they were naughty Lynnea was practically wrestling with them in the cage trying to get there collars on which we never quite got and one of the dogs almost escaped. I learned a lot and enjoyed myself. I learned how to take care of these animals and just exactly how much attention these animals really need. I am looking forward to Thursday, which is the next time we will be going to the Humane Society.

Hospice Volunteering: Take One

On Saturday morning I arrived at the nursing home which I was going to be volunteering at. I had to go through a brief training session, which basically explained to me what was acceptable/unacceptable to talk to these patients about, what I should expect, and some general information about the patients that I would be encountering. The typical patient that is put on hospice is expected to live 6 more months or less. The first patient that I visited and talked with was an elderly woman who was very friendly and glad to see me. I learned that she was not diagnosed with anything specific; she was just dying of old age. In other words, her body was just giving out after having worked so hard for so long. In my training I learned that when patients are dying of old age an obvious sign that they are slipping is that they stop drinking and their body produces very little urine and it is not diluted at all. The lady that I was talking with told me that she had suffered from 3 minor strokes within the last month, which made it a little bit hard to understand her but I was able to make out what she was saying after I got used to it. It was disheartening to think that this nice old woman may die before the next time I get to see her.

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.