Praire Chicken #1

For this week with my project I went to a meeting in the TNR to learn how to keep records on the Praire Chickens. Starting next Tuesday, it sounded like everyday in the month of April they will leave here between 530am and 500am to drive about 15 minutes to Buena Vista to watch these Praire Chickens. I have now only got two days that I am signed up for, next Tuesday and the Tuesday after. I am also going to try and get in on a deer capturing effort before they are done with it for the year, this should all be very interesting.
March 26, 2008 11:03 PM

Oh Deer!!

The work that I am doing with the deer project is significant to many in the Stevens Point area. The deer herd on and around campus has grown to significant size and it is important that we understand how this herd works and monitor the deer for disease and overpopulation. I think with what I have learned working with the deer project it just further solidifies my desire to work in the wildlife management field. It is becoming increasingly important, especially in urban areas, that we learn to better manage the wildlife that are a integral part of our environment. Getting to work hands on with the deer on campus excited me for my future career and gave me some insight into what my future job may hold. I also got to know the types of skills and knowledge needed to work on a project like this one. It is important to understand the species you are working with and be able to understand how they make react or respond in certain situations. Trapping even the seemingly tame deer in Schmeekle is no easy task and requires knowledge of deer behavior. You can’t simply expect them to walk into the most obvious traps. You must account for their instinctive behaviors and plan accordingly. One of the biggest surprises to me was the amount of planning and behind the scenes work that goes into a project like this. Adam, the deer project leader, works nearly year round to keep the project working. He has to write a budget and lobby to college financial boards to receive funding for all his work. Him and his dad also spent much of Christmas break building the drop net that the project uses.

Adults or Children?

Last Friday (4/11) I volunteered again. The first activity we did involved showing the residents flash cards of random items and they had to tell us what it was and what it was used for. I showed the first card to an older lady and I asked her what it was. She looked at it and shouted out "A brush!?" and gave me a somewhat confused looked. It was a look of "are you seriously asking me what that is?". This really bugged me. She looked at me as though I was treating her like a child and like I was almost questioning her intelligence. But my first day at the health care facility the activity director told us that many of the residents have trouble comprehending what’s going on and understanding what you’re saying, almost as if they have regressed to when they were children. But the more time I spend with these people I just do not think that’s true. Maybe they can't tell us in words that they understand because they’re basically trapped in their own heads, but i think they know exactly what's going on, at least for the most part.

Well after the first 20 minutes it was very clear that all the residents were bored out of their minds, because most of them had fallen asleep at this point. That day, me and the other people I volunteer with were left alone and in charge of what we did for that hour. We all looked at each other and decided that this was not in any way helping to better these people. So we decided to turn on some music. This seemed to wake a few of them up. One of the residents (who happens to be someone I enjoy talking to and spending time with very much, not that I'm choosing favorites or anything :]), gave me an awful odd look when I started dancing and rocking out to 'Sweet Home Alabama'. I saw him staring at me and asked if he wanted to dance with me. When I grabbed his hand I felt him hold on real tight, and he gave me a big smile. After the song ended I got a beach ball and asked him if he wanted to hit it back and forth. He really seemed to like this idea. I'd throw it to him and he'd spike it right back. I told him that he could probably have started on my volleyball team in high school and he seemed to get a kick out of that.
The next activity we did was playing with the big ball again. This week I took some pictures so that you guys could get an idea of what exactly we do with them.


This particular activity seems to be pretty popular with the residents. They enjoy getting to kick the ball as hard as they can. At the same time this really helps them to get some blood flowing because as you can see from the pictures every single one of the residents is confined to a wheel chair.

It’s really starting to become clear to me that these people just want someone to spend time with them. They all seem so lonely and want someone to show them some form of love. One lady in particular always reaches for my hand whenever I’m near her. She just wants to feel that closeness to someone and feel the kindness from something as simple as me holding her hand. Doing this service learning project has really been an eye opening experience. It’s almost been like a slap in the face about how fortune we all have it and how precious life really is.

Reflection on Hospice Volunteering

After about 7 hours of visiting with hospice patients, I have learned a great deal. I believe that what I am doing is very important in the community, because I think that older people don't always get the attention that they need and they appreciate how I have been educating them about what I have been learning in biology! Some of the patients that I have visited have a very dreary outlook on life, and when people like me go to visit them it brightens up their day. Everyone should perform some type of service whenever they have time, it helps people out in ways that you could never know! Some of the people that I have talked to told me that not even their family comes to see them- how sad! This experience has been harder than I thought it would: when one of the women that I was visiting passed away, I had no idea what to do. I realize that there may be some negative aspects of performing community service, but the perks are worth it! I was invited to a 99th birthday party for a man named Philip that I have been talking with. His memory isn't in working condition anymore, so he reminds me every couple of minutes how much he loves learning from me and how much he loves seeing me! What I am doing is improving the quality of life for these people, and it makes me feel very good inside. I hope that everyone else can feel as good as I do about what we've been doing!

Where Debot Goes #2

Adam, Tyler and I have been working out what all is going on our post. We decided to that we are going to talk about all the different important areas in the digestion system. We are going to include what each one does with the food and what some common diseases are that are found in there. We are going to be talking to someone from the HEC to see when we can set up a stand for our poster. Our post will include a complete picture of the whole digestive tract and all the information that we have been gathering from get sources. Our sources are giving us the perfect information that we need to complete our project.

Autism Night

The Children's Museum of Stevens Point holds autism night on the first Monday of every month. A young mom was there with her four-year-old son, Austin. He was a very happy little boy with enough energy to run a marathon. When Austin was born he appeared to be a normal healthy little boy, but when he turned two his development hit a standstill and almost everything he learned dissappeared. With the help of specialists he is learning to talk again, although is speech is limited. Being the mom of a child with autism is without a doubt a full-time job. Austin eat's anything. He will literally eat his clothing. He also has a problem with running away. He's a master escape artist (they live on 40 acres of land with alot of water). He also has no concept of pain. She hasn't taken him to a grocery store in over 3 months. The last time she took him to a grocery store, he cracked his head open. His whole body is almost insensitive, except for his head. His mom has a hard time brushing his teeth and he's already had to have surgery to remove some of his teeth because of decay that led to his gums. Something that is unique to his form of Autism is that he does "edging". He has rituals that he does to calm himself down in exciting situations. When new people walk past him he swings his arms in excitement and hops up and down in order to take-in new information. He also lines up his hot-wheel cars. He lines them up every time in a specific order. If he turns his head for a second, after he lined up the cars, his mom will move one just a slight bit. When he turns around and looks back at the cars, he is quick to realize it.

The other family that came in had a son named Logan. Logan was very passive, but he was very verbal. He even came over by us to talk and asked us a few questions. Logan, has a lower form of autism on the "spectrum" as his mom called it. His parents knew that Logan was autistic from when he was only a baby. He was always behind on development. Logan only goes to a school for kids with special needs for half a day. He hates loud noises. The Children's Museum has a train that the kids can play on and he was scared to even walk into that half of the building because he doesn't like the noise. He doesn't handle busy areas or stressful situations very well. The difference between the two boys shows the variations of autism.

Cellular Respiration Animation

With the two tests these last couple of weeks, our progress has moved pretty slowly. But now that we can get some real work done, I think we'll have something to show pretty soon. We finally decided exactly how we are going to begin and go about the animation. We will start with a broad shot of the entire cell, complete with organelles, and a basic definition of cellular respiration. Then we'll zoom in on each of the important components of respiration and give basic definitions of those. Then we'll go step by step through the process, being specific, yet simple enough for high school biology students to understand. Finally, we will quickly review the process one last time. We plan to leave the loop running with out our voices a few times as to allow the instructor some time to say things. My task as the art major, is to begin creating the image files we will use in the animation, starting with the overview of the cell. The others will be coming up with the simple steps and definitions. We hope that in a week or two, we can begin the recording process.

Humane society

This week I went to the humane society and voluteered for two hours. Vicki and I went straight to the dog kennels to walk and play with the dogs. However, it was raining so we couldn't take any of the dogs outside , so we just took them into a large room. First, we took a fun and loveing mixed puppy, and just played some catch with him. Then, we took a large Saint Bernard out because he looked like he needed some attention. He only had three legs but was still almost stronger than I was. When I took him out of his kennel, he started barking really lound at the dog in the end kennel. I could bairly get him away from the small dog at the end. I found out later the small dog just had surgery, so he wasn't acting himself and would bark at any dog that passed. After playing with these dogs, we descided to play with some of the cats and kittens in a small room with many cat toys. I was playing with them with a rope that they chased around the room. When it was almost time to leave, we took out another black puppy and took him into the room to play catch. I had a lot of fun and can't wait to go again next tuesday.

Service Learning Day 2 - YMCA

First off, I need to clarify a few things. In my last post I said that kids ages 3-12 can use the exercise equipment. I misspoke. There is two rooms at Family Prime Time, the “weight room” and the play room. The play room is open to kids in grades kindergarten to sixth. The weight room is open to kids ages 7-12, which is much safer and makes sense. I am sorry for the wrong information. The Body Motion machines that the kids use were donated by Ministry Health Care. According to Ashley, the person working in the weight room, these machines are rare, not many places have them. The machines have five settings, they progressively get heavier by utilizing more of the person's body weight. The maximum that the kids can use is three quarters of their wight, which is a safe amount and will not stunt growth or have other side effects. There are 10 stations using legs, back, chest, shoulders, and abs. The kids are told to do around 15 reps and they do one circuit. They have to warm up by running on the treadmill of bike for a few minutes then stretch after the workout. Also, the kids can only work out three times a week so their body has time to heal. When someone new wants to work out, they have to go three orientations. The first and second orientations the kids have to do the exercises as the instructor tells them and the third orientation is in front of their parents and instructor to show the parents that they can do the exercises. I also found out the date of the earth day activities, but still don't really know what I will be doing there.

Autism Night

This evening my group took a trip over to the children's museum and spent a few hours there for autism night. It was a great learning experience, even though only two autistic children came in. The first boy's name was Austen and he was four years old. He was diagnosed with autism when he was two years old. He was very hyper, and very rarely stayed in one place for more than 15-20 seconds. He is always on the move, and he loves to dance around and climb on anything possible. While we were watching him play, his mother was anxious to talk about him and his condition and she was willing to answer any questions we had. She mentioned that Austen has a very high pain tolerance and never cries. When he hits his head hard she said that he just lets out a death scream. A little later Logan came in with his parents and little brother. Logan was also four years old and knows Austen from school. Logan was different than Austen in that he was much more calm and was not running around and climbing on things all the time. He could speak much better than Austen and had a much longer attention span. Logan's mother and father were also very much willing to talk about his condition and were happy to answer the questions we had. Neither of these two boys were completely potty trained, which makes it very hard for their teachers when they go to school. Later we went and painted and drew on the chalkboard with the children. I know it has got to be hard for their parents and could not imagine what a handful it must be. I really enjoyed playing with these boys even though they were a handful. It was great talking to the boys' parents and I could tell they enjoyed telling us anything we wanted to know.

Sturgeon Patrol Update 1

This week in sturgeon patrol I was expecting to receive an email from the coordinator of the program concerning details about our volunteering. The schedule was to be posted by April 1 but was not posted. I received an email that information would be sent out by Friday afternoon concerning the missing information and it still did not come. I did find out some information about what we are going to be doing from some who are involved while I was making phone calls. It sounds as though Chad Leanna and I will need to arrive a little before 7:00 pm where we will be briefed about what we need to do. This will include making sure people don’t tamper with the fish while they spawn. The locations we will be watching include shallow stretches of the river as well as some commonly used rock piles that are popular for the sturgeon. The shift will be from 7 to 7 and the program will provide us with 3 separate meals including dinner when we arrive, a midnight snack, and a breakfast before we leave in the morning. We signed up for 3 different night shifts on April 23, 24, and 30. Hopefully by next week the dnr will have a schedule out that will let us know when we will be watching the sturgeon. The reason for the delay on scheduleing could be because of the weather because the movement of the sturgeon as well as when they spawn is directly dependant on the weather and the water temperature. If the conditions are not right then the fish will not move up into the river.

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...