Spring has Sprung!

Well it is FINALLY spring here, with the snow almost completely gone in the valley. And it's been raining the past couple of days which really makes me miss McMinnville! Not to mention the fact that conference championships were this weekend =(

First in the long list of news, I will be attending the University of Wyoming next year to finish up my masters in Natural Science with a focus in Natural Science Education! All of us that applied got in, so we are currently on the hunt for apartments and trying to figure out exactly what we want next year to look like.

Winter practicum flew by, and we're halfway done with spring practicum as well. I've loved outreach so far, getting to work in a classroom with younger kids, but it's definitely been the most stressful of practicums so far!

We're well into our Advanced Elements of Field Ecology Course Design (AEFECD) class now, and heading to Yellowstone for some front country camping tomorrow! Over the last three weeks we have learned about backwards design when planning for a unit, and we dove into some natural history of the area as well.

We spent two days each on insects, mammals, birds and plants. I don't have photos from insect or mammal days, but for birds we went to observe the sage grouse lek out by Mormon Row. It was freezing and some of us got a little sidetracked looking at other wildlife and taking pictures, but it was a cool experience.

Looking through the scopes

I'm not yet skilled at taking pictures through scopes

Entertaining ourselves

Look over there!

We got to hang out with Doug Wachob for two days. He knows so much about birds! I'll never be able to remember it all.

Katherine demonstrating some adaptations of birds with Doug

We also had to dissect birds to get some hands on practice with their anatomy. I wasn't exactly pleased. Aracely and I got a Dusky Grouse to work with, and let's just say she did most of the actual dissecting.

Before

During

After - ick!

The next two days were spent on botany which was much more my speed! I know a lot of woody plants, but not the herbaceous ones! We got to learn some flower anatomy and formulas, and then dissected some flowers. Way better than birds.

We've had fridays off for a couple weeks now, and this past one we spent a few hours working in a community garden in Kelly. It was a lot of fun and good way to keep our minds off of schoolwork for a while. Not that it worked too well, we kept trying to identify birds that flew overhead and name parts of weeds that we pulled up!

The earth movers!

A few weeks ago we went climbing again. I was not as successful this time, but it was still fun, but REALLY windy and cold. It made it quite difficult to hold onto the rock face when I couldn't feel my fingers....

Nick

Wyatt

Julia

Ben took over the camera while I climbed 

Me

Some of the gang

Martha

Ben

So this week we head to Yellowstone for my second attempt at camping. When I talked to Aaron about how this time will be different than backpacking, he told me "it's called California camping". I'm hoping it's more up my alley than the backcountry! 

Our capstone team for the summer is in the midst of planning for Jackson Hole Science Expeditions. We will have 11th and 12th graders as well as a few freshmen in college for 4 weeks. During that time we teach them based on curriculum that we've planned throughout the course of AEFECD and after. It should be a fun summer!

My goal is to have another post up next week with all the pictures from Yellowstone!

~Meghan

Back to field teaching

The Shimmery Tromping River Otters (our winter practicum team) presented our Ecological Inquiry projects a couple weeks ago, during which we learned a lot about wolves, Moose-Wilson road, and off road motorized vehicles! It was a fun week, although we are all glad we're now done with that project! It took a lot of time and effort, and our final resource binders were turned in last Friday.

Last week consisted of many seminars to introduce us in more detail to the different programs at TSS. It was a long, but informative week.

This last weekend I tried snowboarding for the first time. What an adventure. It was fun, but one of the most painful things I have ever done, including 11 years of gymnastics! Thanks to Paige, Wyatt and Aracely for the fun day!

First time on a lift! (photo by Dana)

(photo by Dana)

(photo by Dana)

(photo by Paige)

This week my team is teaching 8th graders from Bighorn Middle School. I am back in the field for the first time in a while. I've discovered that I prefer programming and hosting over field teaching, so this week had been a stretch, but a good learning experience. The kids are great, and we're getting to teach some slightly new content. We went to the elk refuge yesterday, and it was apparently the ideal day to do so. It was beautiful and sunny, and the elk were extremely active!

Next week we teach a group of Washington DC, and once again I will be field teaching. Then winter practicum is over! It has gone so much faster than fall practicum, and spring starts in just two weeks! Outreach should be fun though, so looking forward to that!

~Meghan

Miscellaneous wintertime fun

Well I am not doing a good job updating this blog…promise to work on that.

How is it already February? I feel as though I just moved here a couple months ago. The year is flying by and we're already halfway down with out winter practicum. Last week we taught a group of high school students from Fort Washakie on the Wind River Reservation, and this week we taught 8th graders from Tongue River Middle School. I discovered that I really love hosting programs, too bad I don't get another chance!

But before practicum started, we took a Winter Ecology class. It was a lot of information packed into two weeks, but we did some fun activities and projects! There was a winter foraging activity where we wore shorts and T-shirts and pretended we were animals foraging for food in the winter. Hershey's Kisses were worth 1 point, Hershey's Hugs 2 points, and miniature candy bars 10 points! We had to get 100 points to survive the winter and 150 to reproduce. The majority of us died. But I got a ton of chocolate out of it!

Before the winter foraging activity (photo by Kevin K)

After (photo by Kevin K)

We learned about animals, plants and humans in the cold, some snow science, winter tracking with one of the best female trackers in the country, and winter weather patterns in this area. I discovered I'm an awful tracker, but still really love identifying plants in winter!

Looking for tracks with Michelle

Studying a moose bed

More tracks

Ashley, Wyatt and I did a project looking at whether people sleep warmer in sleeping bags while wearing lots of layers or minimal clothing. We set up a tent and had people lay still in a sleeping bag for an hour at a time, once in layers and once in underwear with a temperature logger to chart their temperature over time. We didn't find any significant results, but it was a fun project that didn't involve digging snow pits!

Making our teacher help us out (photo by Ashley)

Setting up the temperature logger (photo by Ashley)

Just being silly (photo by Ashley)

Between classes and teaching we've found some fun things to do. I'm getting a little better at cross country skiing, and still trying to find a time to learnt to downhill ski. I also went ice skating for the first time since sophomore year of high school and remembered how much I love it! Ashley and I plan do go more often this year and next.

The frost on the trees around here after the fog is amazing. I haven't managed to capture a great picture yet, but it's a goal of mine this year.

Last night we had a formal/prom here on campus, so we all had fun getting a little dressed up for the occasion. Props to Katherine for putting the event together! We had some brief ballroom and medieval dance lessons, but then the night turned to competing over the playlist to put on some seriously silly dance songs. It was a blast!

The grads (the royal court)

Next week our teaching team has Ecological Inquiry week 2 and we will be presenting our topics. Paige and I will be taking the class out with a biologist from GTNP to look and listen for wolves with telemetry! I have yet to see a wolf. Hopefully Wednesday will be my lucky day!

I'm probably forgetting something that has happened since winter break, but these are the highlights.

~Meghan

A Surprise Visit!

While winter break was wayyyy too short, it was definitely a memorable one! My two best friends from college managed to surprise me for my birthday by coming to visit for a week! I don't know how they kept their plans a secret for months, but it was amazing!

We started off the week by going to old Sac for my birthday, somewhere I hadn't been in years! We wandered around and did a little shopping, had some lunch, and then had a great dinner at the Spaghetti Factory.

We went to the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose one day, an interesting experience! Stairs to nowhere, doors that open into walls, and 47 fireplaces! I wish we could have explored the rest of the house too.

We also took a nice walk through the park. It was a beautiful sunny day which turned out to be perfect because the deer were out in force! We were able to walk almost right up to them.

And the annual awkward park photos! But this time with friends!

Thank you guys for a wonderful break and birthday! My time at home was way too short compared to the 7 and 8 weeks Linfield gave us, so I can't wait for the next time I get to go home. Whenever that will be!

The next two weeks will be spent in Winter Ecology (brrr!) and then we jump into the winter teaching practicum!

~Meghan