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.

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.