Where Debot Goes

Last week sunday, Adam, Tyler and I put the finishing touches on our poster for our project. We picked a couple of days to present our poster in HEC during times where students are walking from class to debot or from debot to class. With our project, we gave out snacks that are healthy for your digestive system to keep it working properly. Our poster included all the important and main areas of the digestive system and talked about what they did and what could possibly happen to them. Our poster also included a picture of the whole digestive system to show different people where all the organs are located in the body. Having the picture on the poster helps with showing the flow of where the food goes.

Frogs & Toads @ the Children's Museum

This week we taught the kids the differences between frogs and toads. We had pictures of frogs that they could color. We also had pictures of toads that they colored and then put dots of glue and sprinkled bird seed on - this was to mimmick the bumps on toads. We also brought books about frogs and toads that we read to them. They had cute stories to tell us. One little girl told us about how her brother stuck a frog down her shirt when she was four. Every week these kids are capable of putting such a big smile on my face. I'll be honest, in the beginning I just wanted to get this project over with and be done with it. The criteria for the project wasn't very specific at first and I was under the opinion that we would do one day of service and be done. I'm glad though, that we were asked to go multiple times because I feel that I got more out of it. I think it's important for people to get out and help other people. Volunteering is important in our community, but I think that service LEARNING is even more important because like we were tought in class the one thing that really sticks with you consistantly through life is your brain. I've been surprised how my attitude towards volunteering has changed over the past few weeks. I'm actually going to miss working with the kids. It's definitly been a fun time.

fun at the childrens museum

this week at the childrens museum we taught the kids about the difference between frogs and toads. it was a little slow to day but we still had some fun with everything. we brought a couple of books with us that showed the difference between the frogs and toads. we also brought some pictures of frogs and toads for the kids to color and determine the differences between the two. on the pictures of the toads the kids would put little spots of glue on the toad and bird seed to simulate the bumby surface of the toad and for the frog they would either just color it or find a part in a magazine that was green or a frog like color to put on the frog to make it smooth like a frogs skin. overall i think that the project went pretty well and i was a little surprised to hear what some already knew about frogs or toads. it was a pretty fun day i would say getting to hear all the stories about frogs and toads from the kids as most were pretty funny and reminded me of my childhood.

News on the hoofed front

All the exciting work is done, I no longer get to go play with all the critters and have to go into more of the learning portion of the project. Now that I have all my pictures done I have to write up all the descriptions and than code the website. I was planning on working on that this weekend, but I had a disagreement with a knife and now have 6 stiches on my finger which makes typing really hard. As I am experiancing now. I think I will try to work on what I can and do photo editing and hopefully in a few days my typing skills will be better.

Children's Museum

This week at the Children's Museum, our goal was to teach the children about frogs and toads, and mostly, the difference between them. We had outlines of a frog and a toad for the children to color, and when they would finish coloring the toad, we would have them glue some birdseed on its back to imitate the rough bumps on toads backs.
I have really enjoyed working with the children at the museum over the semester, and I always have a feeling of gratification when I leave there. I believe the work we do there not only has an impact on the children, but also on the children's parents. I can tell from every project we do with the children that their parents are very excited to have us their to teach the children about different animals. From the time I have spent doing my service learning project, I have realized the gratification that can be gained from helping others out, no matter how big or small. It is very important that people volunteer their time for various boards, councils, and other services.

Cellular Respiration Animation Update

This past week the group finished the rough outline for what exactly will be said and will take place during the animation. On Thursday we met and began our voice recordings. All went very well, except for a little confusion on the ATP synthesis part of the narrative. We are planning to meet again monday and tuesday to give the project its last finishing touches.

Sturgeon Patrol

Last Wednesday night Andy and I embarked on our expedition as sturgeon guards. After leaving Stevens Point we drove out to Shiocton and went to the main base camp, also known as “fish camp.” This camp is a DNR owned farmhouse where all the volunteering folks are assigned areas and told what to do. When we arrived we were sent downstairs to eat a home cooked supper and pack our lunch for the night. While we were eating I was interviewed by a representative from Wisconsin Public Radio. I was then broadcasted this past Tuesday on the radio. While eating other volunteers were arriving back from the day shift and we talked about how many fish they seen and any other interesting events. After supper we then went upstairs and were assigned an area to go and perform sturgeon guard. We were also given a hat. We were place in a remote location along the Wolf River. The name of the place was “the shithouse.” This location was very secluded and there were dozens of sturgeon present along the rivers banks. Our duties were to watch for poachers or anybody harassing the fish. I few saw any we had to call the base or the local conservation warden on duty. While we were here we had the chance to view the sturgeon practicing their spawning rituals. The female would come near the shore and the males would then brush up next to her and perform external fertilization. The sturgeon spawned all night. We were there until 6:30 in the morning. We then went back to base and had breakfast there. After breakfast we said our thank you’s and good bye’s and headed back to school. I then made it into lab at 9 and did not sleep until later that night. It was hard on the body but I feel that it was an amazing experience. I plan on returning next year and I would recommend this to anyone interested in fishes. I am unable to get my pictures up but I have some up by early next week.

The YMCA continued

Last Friday at the Y, they had the earth day celebration. It turned out to be not must of a party though, as only four or five kids showed up. But we had it all set up anyway. We did paper making where we took shredded paper, mixed it with colored water, and made paper. One of the kids really loved punching the paper slosh and putting it through the press to squeeze all the water out. Another thing we did making "trees" out of empty toilet paper rolls and stenciled out hands. This was actually more fun than I thought it would be. The last little station we had was for kids who wanted to make their own tote bag so they wouldn't need to use disposable bags. They also had a few booths set up for the kids to look at with animal fur and skulls and pictures of animals in the rain forest.
When I started volunteering at the Y, I really did not expect too much of it. I thought I would go, put my time in, and get my points for it. But, over the next few weeks, I really enjoyed myself, and enjoyed working with kids. The experiences I had at the YMCA in Stevens Point prompted me to apply for a position at the Y back home in Green Bay. I got the job, and am going to be working with kids all summer, so having the volunteer work at the Y really paid off for me. I am glad we did the service-learning project.

Dorm sicknesses update

With the end of the year coming up fast we are getting very close to completeing out service project. The power point has been completed which means all we have to do is present the material to our dorm mates. The power point has a lot of valuable information in it including some of the more common sicknesses in the dorms, prevention of the sicknesses and appropriate treatment. I think it is information that will help a lot of people from getting sick in the future. As of right now we are planning on doing our presentations to our halls next week. Overall I enjoyed working on the project with the members of our group and i think we work well as a team. I have enjoyed teaching fellow students how to protect themselves from common sicknesses thus far and hope the presentation is a success. I know i have learned alot from this project and i hope others do as well.

Also the posters are still up in the bathroom and have been for some time. We are starting to reciveing some positive feedback which is cool.

Toilet Teacher

We have our pamphlets up in the bathrooms. Whenever people are using a toilet they are learning from our project. I myself and the other members of my group have gained alot of knowledge but what we find most gratifying is that others are learning from it as well. We were supposed to have the Hall G'vt vote on whether our pamphlets were allowed in the bathrooms but our hall director told us that we would be ok without there approval. On Monday we plan on giving a presentation to people of Steiner Hall. This is the only night our group can make it and what we worked out with the hall director. Since all of you arent able to come to it on Monday night, we will email our presentation and pamphlet to you all over the weekend. One thing we wish we would have done differently was to do sicknesses or infections that we would get in the spring rather than the winter but now people and ourselves will be ready next winter.

More Schmeekle Adventures

For the past couple of weeks, Lauren and I have gotten into a pretty standard routine of going to Schmeekle and picking up litter. I realize that it's nearly impossible to get it all, despite going to a different area each week, but it's still kind of shocking to see how much litter there really is. It's sad to think that people can be so careless, like they can't just throw their garbage in the trash. It's like they consider it more an inconvenience to themselves than the environment. But we've been doing our best to help compensate for this and make Schmeekle look as nice as possible. It's rewarding in a sense that we get the good feeling of knowing we've helped out, and that we get to spend quality time in nature. Especially after our trip to Schmeekle during the lab this week, I'm excited to go out there one more time and wrap things up.

Another Update

Now that we are finally done with the power point that takes a little bit of the stress of knowing we are in the final home stretch. Working on the powerpoint with the other guys was fun. We worked hard on making in understandable for everyone which sometimes proved challanging. We are looking forward to doing our presentations in our halls next week and hopefully we have a good turn out. Overall I have had lots of fun doing this project and working with the other guys. We worked very well as a team and we learned quite a bit as well. With only one week left I think everyone is releaved to be done. I hope everyone else has had as much fun with there projects as we have.

Homework Center Service Learning

Today was the last day I went to the Homework Center in Stevens Point. We arrived to the Homework center at the same time as usual. The kids were excited to see us as usual. I was surprised because most of the kids didn’t have any homework. We helped the ones that had homework and then I took a group outside to play kickball. Kickball was an eventful game due to the fact that when I tried to throw a kid out at second base, I hit my own team mate in the face with the rubber kickball. He had a red mark on his face after the fact, but he felt better after I gave him a free shot at me. Eventually, it started to rain out so we brought the kids inside. I played Candy Land with three youngsters which was pretty entertaining. I don’t mean to brag, but I won my fair share of Candy Land games back in the day, but these boys beat me three times! After Candy Land, we drew pictures and made paper fortune tellers. Sooner than we expected, eight o’clock rolled around, so we cleaned up and sent the children home. All in all, it was a fun day for me and the kids. Next week Thursday is the end of the year picnic; I hope to attend after our lab exam so I can help out again.

cellular Respiration

My group just meet yesterday and we were working on the voice parts for the cellular respiration animation. We meet yesterday in a room in the library where we could have it quiet so we could record the talking parts for each slide. We broke up the talking parts by slide so we could all have equal parts. We also meet last week for awhile to finish drawing up our slides and finishing up writing the parts we were going to say. Dr. Bala came for a little while yesterday and saw us recording our voices which took us a few times to get perfect. Friday, I am going to work with Liz and maybe Cody on fixing some of the animation all day in the art building. This should be interesting to see how it all comes together with the animation and us speaking in the back ground. My group has been working very well together and we could be happy with the results because this is a difficult task to do. I did not know how much work was actually there to make an animation but the results will be worth it. We will meet again next week to finish up the animation and fix anything within the voices or the timing of everything.

Losing a Resident

It was a hard week for my project. I went in to volunteer on Monday, and I found out one of my favorite residents had a bad weekend. She had stomach cancer, and her health was declining rapidly. She also had pretty bad dementia. She broke her arm a while back, and multiple times a day she would ask what happened to her arm because she couldn't remember. That got me thinking how scary Alzheimers can be. Just imagine how lost they feel, they can't even remember what happened to their own bodies. Anyways, this evening I got a call that this resident passed away and it hit me really hard. I was surprised by how much emotion it actually sparked from me, but I think in order to work and be around a place like this I need to learn to accept death. This resident was always so sweet, and she always called me a dear or told me I was such a doll. She never remembered my name, and I doubt she even knew who I was, but I feel like I lost a grandparent. She always had a smile on her face and she always loved to tell me stories about working on the farm when she was a little girl. I'm so happy that she could remember those good memories, not the bad ones like breaking her arm. That also really confuses me that they can remember and forget different things. I'm going to research that this weekend and hopefully next week for my entry have an answer to that.
In regards to the resident that passed away, I'm so happy I got to do this project because I got to spend more time with her. When it was warm out last week I actually took this resident for a walk on a trail behind the building. The whole time she kept saying how wonderful it was to be outside and that everything was so beautiful. She was able to appreciate the little things like nature, and it made me realize I need to slow down sometimes and do that too. I'm really going to miss this resident, but I'm glad I got to learn from her.

Humane Society

On tuesday, I went to the humane society for two and a half hours. I took out a small jack russell terrier. It was so hyper and bouncing all around in his kennel, so I descided to let him out to run off some of his energy. He escaped his leash twice when I was taking him out of his kennel and his collar broke. The people working at the humane society said that dog was there because he is a sneaky, escape artist. We finally got a new collar that went under his front legs so we were sure he wasn't going to escape again. Like most of the dogs there, he was not very easy to walk. He was really wild and fast so we were pretty much running with him around the building. We put him back in his kennel and took out another crazy puppy. I didn't think it was possible but this black lab was even wilder than the dog we just walked. This lab reminded me exactly of my dog when she was younger. This dog almost dragged me with her. She was just so curious when we got outside and was sniffing and playing with everything. When we went into a room, the dog went wild and jumped up on the counters and tables and was knocking stuff down all over. I went back again today for another three hours. We folded news pamphlets to send to everyone in the community. The pamphlets talked all about the society and the animals. It showed pictures of many of the animals so people would be more likely to adopt. The news letter also talked about the humane society walk where people in the community can donate money and walk for the animals at the center. Then we took out another black lab with white patches. This dog was also pretty hard to handle. You have to remain in control to try to handle these animals. By showing these animals that you are in control, they are more likely to listen and do what you want. The hardest part with controling the dogs is when you have to get them in and out of the kennel because all of the kennels are right next to one another. All of the dogs bark at you as you pass and sometimes grawl at the other dogs. I sometimes have a hard time showing the animals that I am in control but I am getting better at it each time I walk with the dogs.

Recording Take One....Two... Three...

Yet another week has gone by and we have yet to finish and fine tune our project on cellular respiration. We've spent over 4 hours this week continuing to work on our animation and voiceovers. Dr. Bala was able to join our group on Thursday afternoon and give us a few tips to improve our definition and explanation of cellular respiration; including glycolosis, the krebs cycle, and electron transport chain. Liz, Steven, Steph, and I met in the library and took turns recording the steps in cellular respiration that will correspond with our animated video. We have plans to meet on Friday and possibly throughout the weekend so we can show our animation in class next week. This project has definitely proven to be difficult. I'm looking forward to viewing our video when it is completely finished. We've all been able to see it in parts but I will be proud when we are able to watch it all the way through with animation, explanation, etc. I truly hope that our video can help students understand cellular respiration more clearly. As my group has found out, it is a difficult task to explain CR without all of the scientific terms and equations.

Another trip to Schmeekle

Now that we have been going to Schmeekle for the past several weeks, we pretty much have the hang of everything. But it always surprises me how much litter we actually find. We go there every week and assume that we make some kind of impact, but once we go back there is always something to pick up. Since our first week out at Schmeekle, my view of it has changed a lot. I thought it was very cool to see how everything has changed from winter to spring. To be honest I thought that the reserve would be much cleaner than it actually was, but we, as well as other helpers, try our best. As I have mention before, the amount of litter is crazy in Schmeekle and there is obviously a lot more in public areas. To put it simply it is not that hard to throw something in a trash can, but I guess not everyone can grasp that concept and because of that, we have a ton of pollution in our environments.

Kick. Stroke. Quiet.

This week was there was sadness in the air. I found out that one of the more active residents had a stroke and was being hospitalized. It was rather obvious when we did the activities today that something was missing. Usually during the big ball activity he would try and kick it as hard as possible, basically booting it across the room, scaring some of the ladies. Most of them would yell and bicker at him and he’d simply smile and laugh under his breath. The other volunteers and I always got a kick out of this. However today when we play with the ball, it was so quiet and empty without him. I'll admit sometimes it gets a little boring watching a bunch of old people kick a ball around, but with him he always had a way of entertaining me.

Volunteering there has really opened my eyes to many things. It's odd how one man could change the whole atmosphere of a room. It makes me think about all those people’s families and how none of them are there to help add character to an event. Like a birthday, thanksgiving, or even a weekend away. They're all somewhat stuck there without their families or friends laughing and joking around. It just isn’t fair; but the more time I spend there the more I want to go back and make sure that these people have someone they can laugh and joke around with.

Hospice Volunteering

After completing about 15 hours of volunteering with hospice patients, I have found that I keep learning more and more every time I meet with a new patient. I spent about 6 hours last Saturday with an elderly man named Paul, who is 86 years old but is still talking and walking like someone much younger than he. Paul was diagnosed with Malignant Melanoma (the deadliest type of skin cancer) a little bit over a year ago, and over the course of the past year the cancer metastasized (spread) to his spine, pancreas, and liver. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that if I was diagnosed with cancer of that degree and only given a mere 3 months to live, I would be in poor spirits. Paul on the other hand, has accepted the fact that he is going to die soon and is just trying to make the rest of his life the best that it can be. Since my career goal is to become an Oncologist of some sort, I think that it is very useful for me to be volunteering with hospice patients because if I become an Oncologist, I am going to be the one telling patients that they don’t have long to live and trying to save their lives. It is extremely emotional but I am making it so far!