Trip to Aullwood Audubon

Today we went to Aullwood Audubon to learn more about nature and how it is a community, where everything is reliant on each other. Producers like plants which create their own food are food for some consumers, such as animals, which are food for even more consumers. Without one consumer, other consumers might not exist. And without them an ecosystem could collapse. There are also decomposers, which ensure that the buildup of dead material can be broken back down into nutrients for the living. At Aullwood Audubon we walked through the forest with binoculars, looking at all of these different things and seeing how we can identify them. We found several species of birds, trees, shrubs, fungi, and animals. At one point along the trail we stopped by some water and used small nets to see if we could catch anything. We quickly were able to find a variety of species, somewhere between five and seven species. For me I was able to find three or four small ones. One of them was a long and thin bug with even thinner legs to move around with. In an attempt to put one of these in a tube our guide accidentally bumped lightly. This light bump was enough to kill it, however.

I found sifting through the water and actually finding living creatures of different species interesting, but more interesting was the snake they showed us when we got back to the main building. It was a Black Rat snake, if my memory serves me correctly. We were allowed to handle the snake and let it slither across our arms. I was a little nervous to hold in because I didn’t know what the texture of its scales would be, as I never handled a snake before. When it was in my hand it wasn’t so bad. They also told us some information about the type of snake, like how it knew better to attack us simply because of size difference. The snake knew that we’re simply too large for it to even hope to stand a chance. Once it was in our hands it was much more comfortable with us being there. After this we went over to the barn and saw some of the animals there, then went back to DRSS. Once there we wrote a contemplation or meditation script about something in nature. Mine I based somewhat on what we did earlier today. The rest of this post is what I wrote.

I am standing on a balcony looking out into the forest surrounding me, trying my hardest to localize where the songs sung by the birds are coming from. Picking the tiny shapes of the birds proves itself difficult when matched against the hundreds of trees and thousands of leaves that they could hide behind. When I find them, I look closer with my binoculars and see their unique colors and figures. I’m only able to see them for a few seconds before they lift of the branches of the trees and disappear from sight behind the thick layer of leaves.

I know there are hundreds or thousands of birds in the woods around me, spread out for miles until there are only a couple around. In order to see them all at once you would have to go so high you wouldn’t be able to see them at all, simply because of their small size. That far away a bird could be completely visible, not blocked by anything, but yet be invisible to the naked eye. Maybe with a telescope one would be able to zoom far enough in to see the birds once again. But even then, you would only be able to see one or a few at a time. Only in my mind could I be able to see all of them, understanding their existence and participation in the surrounding environment.

Centralized in the middle of the thought is me, still standing on the balcony wondering where all the birds really are, only knowing that they are out of my vision but not my mind.

Us standing on the balcony where I based the contemplation script off of

My Time at Cox Arboretum

Today we picked up some things we left off on yesterday, finishing an exercise for describing something we usually don’t look at in much detail and describing it in the five senses. Once we were done with that we got ready and went to Cox Arboretum. I really enjoyed my time there. While we were there we took pictures of five different trees and a creature. Once we did that we were allowed to walk around the park as we pleased, taking more pictures if we wanted to. It was really relaxing being able to just wander around a park and go off the trail to see things. At one point I went over near the lake with another classmate to see some ducks, and then some geese swam over to us and walked around. They weren’t attacking us at all though, and were pretty passive to the ducks as well. I was able to take a picture of one of the geese up close with one of its gosling.

Coffee Tree

A bird that landed right next to me

A turtle in one of the ponds

River Birch

A frog that sat on a classmate's waterbottle

Red Maple

The Geese that walked right up to us

Weeping Willow

Bald Cypress

Experimenting With Words and Observing Nature

Today we started off with another short reading touching on something we would be doing today, which was going down and looking up close at a small area of ground To do this we went over to Delco park and met up with Rob Boley for a workshop before the activity we were going to do. He wanted to show us that we could have fun with writing by using words randomly from a text. First we did a Haiku using the words from some scrap pieces of magazine. The Haiku I made was from a section that was about trees, and I took pieces from almost entire opposite ends of the text. I ended up with the Haiku:

Along the trail was

Monica’s favorite tree,

A lone chestnut oak.

After several others shared theirs, we did another piece of writing where we took a sentence from the same text and used each word as the start of a sentence for dialogue. Using the sentence “Never have I been so excited about the potential for partnership!” I ended up with something that went like this:

“Never.”

“Have you seen it yet?”

“I have seen what now?”

“Been waiting all day.”

“So what is it?”

“Excited for it.”

“About a movie?”

“The great awakening!”

“Potential for a new beginning?”

“For a new life.”

“Partnership? With Trees?”

I actually really enjoyed making these random interesting pieces of writing that made only some sense. I think everyone else had fun with it too. After we did that we continued on to our “Small World” activity where we squared of a small area to observe at different levels. Initially we would look at the spot from a standing position, recording all we could while at that distance. We then kneeled down to observe it closer, and then even closer when we got on our bellies. When I was standing, I could only capture the general scene, such as the fact that there was a patch of dirt with no grass and that everywhere around it was grass and a part of the nearby tree’s roots. I could also see how the tree casted a shadow all around the patch of dirt but allowed light onto just the patch of dirt and on one side extending out of the shadow.

 As I got closer an kneeled down I was able to see more. I could see a small light gray bug, so small and round I couldn’t see it’s head. I watched it for a bit as it darted around very quickly and eventually it ran off to another place. I could also see that there were a bunch of tiny pieces of branches scattered in and around the edges of the patch of dirt. One of them I could now see had a hole going into the branch from one side, large enough to fit the small bug I saw earlier inside. 

When I got even closer, laying down on my belly, I could see little pebbles, bits of tree seeds, and small grains that resembled sand. I could also now see some ants that were so similar in color to the dirt that I was unable to see them at all from my kneeling position. In fact, I could still hardly see them. Only when they moved was it noticeable. In addition to the ants, I could see the small details in the flora. Patterns and textures were visible now. I could also see hints of purple or yellow on the tips of grass seeds. After some more observation I began to notice that the elevation in the dirt path was a decent bit lower than the surrounding areas covered in crass. I then noticed that there was moss and other plant life underneath a chip of wood, and looked up at the nearby tree to see if it was where the wood chip came from. When I saw the tree it was covered in quite a lot of moss, and satisfied my thought that the chip of wood was from the tree. By looking closely at this patch of dirt, I was able to determine some things that have happened in the past and was able to determine what those happenings originated from. Through close observation a story can be told with no words. 

To The Woods 101

Today has been mostly introduction related things to the class with a few activities to go with it. At first we organized into Ms. Kancler’s room to go over the main Blogspot for the STEMmersion and plans for how things are going to go for the last days of the year. When we were done going over the main website, we read a series of quotes by those that have gone into the woods before us. Some people, such as myself, used paper copies while others just used what was on the Blogspot to read it digitally. We also did a short activity where we traced our hand on paper and wrote our names along with five things about us. We went around with these papers and shared with others who we were.
Afterwards we were also split into two groups did a small activity where we basically played “the floor is lava” but with the idea that we are crossing a creak. Each group ended up using the same strategy, which was having a train of people using the four pieces of wood we were given to caterpillar our way across, then have one person go back with all the pieces of wood to get more people over. Other ideas included two people scooting across, then one person going back with all the wood. Once a team got all their people across they were rewarded with candy. When we were done with that activity we began trying to setup our own Blogspots or wix pages for our blogs to go on and use. Unfortunately technical difficulties got in the way for those of us that wanted to use Blogspot. Some were able to figure out the issue and help others get theirs to work. Once we used up our time setting up the blog spots/wix pages we went into Mrs. McDaniel’s room to listen to a guest speaker, talking about how we can be recording our experiences each day. In part of it we were closing our eyes and creating a clear picture in our minds of a pond, bird, and a boat. We shared most people’s interpretations of this scene with details we added in our minds, seeing how different people can interpret general facts, showing us the importance of specifics. We also listened to our speaker reading some entries by famous writers in terms of their experiences in the woods. When we were done with the main portion of listening he had us try and make a sample entry based on our memories in a place where there was heavy influence from nature. The example I used was the pond and nature trail outside the Creation Museum. We did our best to use all of the elements we learned about and covered with the guest speaker and eventually we ran out of time and had to go to recess, then lunch. After lunch we grabbed our yoga mats and went into the gym to prepare for yoga. Unfortunately our instructor had something come up and wasn't able to be there. In the end we just came up with more ideas to refine the guidelines of the STEMmersion course and went back to Ms. Kancler’s room to work on our Blogspot entries. In general though, I think I had a pretty good time today. The activities were fairly fun and nothing went terribly wrong. Any problems that came up were resolved quickly. I was hoping to actually do some yoga today, but it might have been for the best. A decent number of people hadn't brought their yoga mats because it was the first day and they didn't know if they needed it on the first day.