Hospice Volunteering- Reflection

When I was first told about the Service Learning Project, I was unsure as to what type of project I should choose. I could have chosen something that would be easy and might not require much effort, or I could choose a project that would really help me grow as a person and even help me in the future with my career. After much thought, I decided to choose the latter. I chose to volunteer/visit with hospice patients in the city of New London and in the surrounding areas.
At first, the only glimpse of what hospice really was, I had seen when my great aunt became a hospice patient. It did not look to be as emotionally difficult as I quickly learned it was. I think that some people think of people as just their patients, which is professional and correct, but as a hospice volunteer I saw them as just people. I interacted with them for many hours, as well as interacting with their families. When I met their families and listened to the stories that they told about their life before they became sick, they became people to me. Another very startling fact about being a hospice volunteer is that the patients that you see have a limited amount of time to live. One day they are alive and talking, and the next day they are gone. Having had patients that I visited with pass away, I have experienced this pain.
On the bright side, there were many positive things that I learned from my service project, and many positive things that I was able to take part in. For example, an elderly man named Phil that I had been visiting was celebrating his birthday and he invited me (and made sure that I could make it) to his birthday party. I also was able to gain experience in how to not become emotionally attached to patients. I would like to become an Oncologist, which is a doctor that treats Cancer. Not all types of cancer are fatal, but some are. In fact, a patient that I visited had pancreatic cancer, which is usually always a fatal diagnosis. I learned a lot about the biological aspects of cancer, as well as it’s affect on families and the people themselves; making me want to treat and/or cure it even more.
I did not experience any problems with my volunteer experience.
The Service Learning Project that I took part in was rewarding in many ways, and I hope to continue volunteering.

Cellular Respiration

Working in a group for my service learning project was a great experience, especially working with Cody, Liz and Stephen. They have taught me a lot about cellular respiration. We had to break down the steps and stages of cellular respiration. This was a huge challenge for me because I did not really understand what was going on during all the stages but my group helped me out a lot. I finally understood all the stages for the most part but once the final animation is done it will be a lot easier to get the different stages. We had to read off parts for the animation which was difficult with some of the words that we used in it. This helped me gain speaking skills which can help me greatly in my future. Another thing I got out of this service learning project was working as a team. It is not always easy to work with a few people to all agree on what to say or what the animation should look like. Our group did an excellent job working together and everyone put the same amount of effort into it. I also learned how to help with the animation on the computer. I have worked on the computer with photo shop and doing some videos in high school, but this was a lot different. Once I got the hang of how to make a tally screen it went by pretty fast. Once we complete our project we will send it to some high school teachers, some our old ones and some high schools around here. We might even send it out to all the college professors to see if they can use it. We are going to also put it on YouTube for anyone to view it or use it. Overall, this service learning project was a good idea because everyone had different ideas where they could help out the community. Some were interacting with people or animals and some were making something to inform the community about. I learned a lot more than I thought I would have by doing a project like this one because I am pretty good working with people but I am not that good at putting things together. I thought the animation of cellular respiration was a difficult task to work on but we could do it and hopefully it will benefit many people in the future.

Prairie Chicken

Since my last post I went out one more time with TWS and helped record the numbers. The DNR was no out with us this time but it was still fun to go out and do. We had to leave a little earlier this time, 430am to be able to be in the blinds before it started getting light out but we were in Buena Vista at about 5ooam and in the blinds by about 515am after a long walk through the prairie. This time it start a little faster than the last time, we started seeing the chickens at first light pretty much, but it turned out to be an overall slow morning again. This time out we only saw 5 total prairie chickens, 3 males and 2 females ( I managed to get some pictures, but they never really did come close enough for any of them to turn out). Overall I spent probably about 9 hours in a wood blind smaller than anything I ever want to have to sit in, very uncomfortable but the time went by pretty fast with things happening. The said that usually the prairie chickens come right up within feet of the blind to dancer and show off for the ladies, but I didnt get to see any of this. Overall this whole project was fun to participate in, I also got to go out and help the community (DNR) by helping count the chickens. I think that this was a good learning experience and anyone that gets the chance to do it should give it a try. I like the project, anything with the outdoors is fun to me, and this had a little extra to add to it.

Final Where Debot Goes

Now that our Service Learning Project has come to an end, I see many things that I have learned and the others that I have affected. When I first started this project, I thought it was going to be a complete waste of time. We put in our effort to work on the project and presented it like planned. While working and presenting the project I learned that it really is hard to get your message across to people when they at first don’t have any interest in what you are trying to teach. This project definitely made me realize what teachers have to go through every day.
Also while working on the project I learned more about the digestive system itself. My friend has stomach ulcers and working on this project helped me better understand what causes these ulcers, and how to help relieve them. My aunt in the past also had her gall bladder removed, and with the information on the gall bladder and the bile produced from the liver, it refreshed my memory of what had happened when she had her surgery and the process that she went through.
While working and presenting this project I got to experience the other side of what I am used to experiencing. Usually I am just like many of the people that we seen in the HEC, just walking by with other things to do. When you are sitting at your table ready to tell people about your project and no one is stopping by, you realize that you are that person too. I know someone who is always helping out various groups with their fundraisers and whatnot that happened to stop by to look at our project. She probably felt a sort of obligation from seeing all of the people walking past her presentations that she wasn’t going to do that to us and stopped by just to check it out for a few seconds. In the future I will be more aware of the various tables or booths that are presenting these things and I will stop by a few more of these.
Overall this service learning project was a beneficial experience for my college Biology 160 class. When I first seen it as a requirement on the syllabus I thought why am I stuck in this class, the only one that requires this? Now I realize that it was not that bad at all and in the future I will not be as hostile before I even know what it is about, toward a class with a service project like this one.
Finally, as this is the last post here is a last picture of someone who was interested in our project.

Schmeekle Reserve

I finially got a chance to start doing some volunteer work last Friday morning. When I first got there we went down to the workshop in the basement of the visitor center. They build custom signs for people there and I had to sand one of the signs. After I finished up with that I walked along all of the trails in the reserve. I was looking for wet and mucky spots and marked them on a map. The reason they wanted me to do this is so after I was finished someone could come and lay down some wood chips in the marked spots. While I was walking the trails I spotted a lot of wildlife. Some of the birds that I saw were the crow, cardinal, robin, red winged black bird, and a few mallards. The most interesting part of the day was getting about 15 or 20 yards away from two does. I was walking along the trail and I spotted them feeding. I just kept walking and they just starred at me and didn't even move. This is a good example of how tame these animals are to humans.

Sturgeon Patrol

As you can see from the pictures and videos, Chad and myself had a pretty eventful day of sturgeon gaurding, if you will. When we got to the sturgeon camp we were assigned an area and were about to leave when another volunteer came in and said that there were no longer any fish in that area so we were reassigned. The area that we were assigned to was nicknamed "the shithouse." As funny as it may sound, we didnt know what to expect but it turns out it was just an old cottage along the bank of the river. The location was about a half mile from the nearest road and on private property so we were assured that there would be no problems with this area. We saw sturgeon immediately after arriving and there were tons of them. We were so intent on watching them we almost didnt see the person that had walked up behind us. When we saw them we were nervous at first but soon found out it was just a neighbor in charge of watching over the property while the owners were not around. After that it proved to be an uneventful night except for the sturgeon excitement and spawning of them. We did see several other fish including suckers collecting on the free lunch of sturgeon eggs. The night was mostly cold and quiet and then in the morning we left for the camp again where we reported what we had saw, they provided us with breakfast, and we were on our way home to make it back in time for bio lab.

Humane Society Update

I volunteered at the Humane Society Friday and Saturday for about 2 hours each. I did cat socialization. I sat and played with about 10-12 cats each time. You could tell the cats were lonely so it felt good to be able to cheer them up a little and to hear them meow. It was also good because there were a lot of people looking for animals each day so I think it was beneficial to allow prospective adopters see how the cats interacted with people. I never had a cat as a pet before nor have I interacted with cats a lot but I noticed that they have really rough tongues. At first this perplexed me but then I spotted a cat licking itself and I realized the rough tongue must have been an adaptation for grooming. I never knew this about cats before but I hope that as I continue to volunteer with cats and other animals I'm able to find out other interesting things about them.

Sturgeon Patrol

Where Debot Goes.

This last week we set up our informational poster in the HEC. Instead of setting it up Tuesday through Thursday we had to do it Wednesday through Friday due to some scheduling problems. I was running the booth on Thursday with Adam and with Ian on Friday. We set up for about an hour and 15 minutes so that we could catch people going to 2 different hours of class. During these times we were giving out a snack to the people who took the time to come to the booth and learn something. It was notably busier in the HEC on Thursday than it was on Friday but people stopped by and learned about where debot goes nevertheless.

CPS Daycare

This past week at the daycare was different on one of the days because on wednesday when I went the head teacher Lorrie was not there. As a voluneer there I just listened to the other students and helped as much as I could, there were assistant teachers that have been working there for the year and longer so they got everything ready for snack time and group time. There is a certain play time for the kids where we have different areas that they can go to and when they complete the area such as making a picture or counting some blocks they recieve a sticker on a sheet that they are given in the begining of class. As hectic as it was with the children running around it was interesting to see the change in their behavior. I believe that since teacher Lorrie was not around the children tended to act out more. I will be going a few times this week and will be getting a few pictures.

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.