Week 11?

Guys.... the summer semester is almost over! It's honestly flow by so fast, I can't believe it. My project is chugging along. All of the activities are completed, mostly now I'm working on contacting people to lead different parts of the program, as well as finalize small things like what room each activity will take place in, what will be snack, and write some background information on how to lead the activities. 

I was also able to contact someone in the Museum on whether the Girl Scouts will be able to pin butterfly specimens and take them home because I thought would be really cool for them to have as a souvenir. Unfortunately they won't be allowed to take their pinned butterflies home, but they will be able to pin them and the Museum will add them to their collection, which I still think is really cool.

I'm really looking forward to being completely finished with the Girl Scout Program and being able to look back at everything I created.

Week 10

This week things have been coming together really nicely. I am getting pretty far along on my project. Dr. Daniels, the butterfly expert at the museum got back to me with a guest speaker to contact, and I finally thought of a great activity for the Girl Scouts to do. I'm going to have them look at phylogenetic trees, which are basically how scientists look at behavioral, physical, and today, mostly genetic data and see how different species are related to each other, and how they diverge from each other. Obviously I simplified the concept a bit for the Scouts but I'm really really happy with the activity. Also I created all of the activity from scratch, and made a bunch of graphics for the activity which was really cool. 

Yesterday (Monday) I taught camp on Inventions. I taught 3rd and 4th graders which was nice because they are able to read and write. There were a lot of fun activities, like making a bridge with a limited amount of gumdrops and toothpicks, and trying to make a chair to hold a human out of just newspaper and tape (spoiler alert: none of their chairs held any of them). For the rest of the week, I'm hoping to finish up my project completely. 

Week 9!

This week I have been focusing on my project- a program for the Girl Scouts on Lepidoptera. So far I have created a guided tour for the Girl Scouts to take through the Butterfly Rainforest and I also want to give them time to be able identify different butterfly species. I've also emailed Dr. Jaret Daniels to ask him if he knows any women that would like to speak to the Girl Scouts.

Mostly I've been looking at research that scientists do in the Lepidoptera field to get idea for different activities for the girls to do. I really want what they learn to be relevant to the Lepidoptera field of research, I don't want to give them random butterfly activities. I'm really looking for meaningful important skills to teach them so it has been taking a while for me to think of activities for them to do. Hopefully I get some great ideas soon!

Week 8

This past week has been great. I have been working in the First Colony camp for incoming first and second graders and even got to teach Thursday and Friday. The kids were so much fun to be with, but definitely energy taxing! I only worked with them for five hours each day with another teacher, so I can't imagine a full day by yourself. But overall, it was a ton of fun. The kids were so enthusiastic about everything we were doing and loved being in the museum. 

In camp we taught the kids about excavating, soil layers, and artifacts. We had a great discussion on why archeologists cannot dig up treasure and keep it for themselves to get rich. The campers did a lot with looking at fossils and using the same tools that real archeologists use at excavation sites. The campers also went outside and dug their own mini excavation sites and one of the campers actually found five dollars that he was allowed to keep. The first colony camp also talked about St. Augustine, the Spanish and Native American influence that is in Florida today, and preservation of artifacts. I have absolutely no background in archeology at all so I learned a lot in my research before teaching the camp which was fun. 

Below are pictures of the mini archeology sites that the campers made.

Week 6

This week has been crazy busy. I feel like all I've been doing is running around nonstop. This past Friday Deanna, Brooke, and I went to an outreach event that the city of Gainesville was hosting for the opening of a new road and the development and improvement of Gainesville. The FLMNH has a touch table (meaning everyone can touch everything on the table) filled with turtle shells, huge conch shells, Megalodon shark teeth models, and other things kids could look at. Our job was to ask people if they had ever been to the museum and to engage people and answer any questions they had. It was pretty fun- a lot of kids were so amazed by how big a lot of the artifacts were and got so excited when we told them that they were allowed to touch everything. 

The rest of the week has been more of the same. Helping out with summer camp, working on my project, and preparing for future weeks camp mainly. This week I am also the supply person for camp, meaning I have to put away all the supplies from this week and prepare the supplies for next week's camp, but that mostly doesn't start until the end of the week so I've just been reading up on what is expected of me. I'm definitely looking forward to next week, and things slowing down a little bit since there won't be any school.  

Week 5!

 

 

This week has been crazier than all the last. Summer Camp is here!! Over the weekend has all been intense prep for Summer Camp to begin. I put together field guides/journals for the campers to fill out throughout their week of camp, I helped to supply the teachers with the materials they need for their activities, and I helped to get the actual classrooms set up. Also, this past Sunday the Museum was crazy busy (probably because school is out) and 3 volunteers called in sick so I had to help with checking people before they go into paid exhibits, and listening to the radio to see if the front desk needed me.

 

Most importantly, I got my project for the summer! I am going to be planning a program for Girl Scouts Explore in the Museum. It is going to be focused on butterflies and lepidoptera. I'm really excited about this, I am all for girls getting exposure to science and being able to introduce them to different aspects of science that they haven't seen before. (Side note- LEGO is launching women in science figures which I think is awesome! http://www.buzzfeed.com/rossalynwarren/lego-to-launch-female-scientist-figures-thanks-to-an-online). So just to begin diving in on that I have been reading the past Girl Scout Programs other people have done (Botany, Palaeontology, and Archeology), as well as the Butterfly Exhibit Guide to get an idea of the type of information that I want to include in my program.



This week at FLMNH has all been in preparation for the summer camps that begin next week. 

On Sunday I helped with the JV (junior volunteer) training. The JVs will be volunteering in all parts of the museum, including engaging children, helping with the summer camps, and giving tours. I helped to give an information session in the JVs engaging museum visitors in the exhibits and another information session on engaging visitors using the Discovery Carts, which are these carts filled with models and interactive things kids and adults can touch and see that go along with various exhibits. The training overall went well, and I actually saw a couple of students that I taught last semester which was pretty cool. They were definitely surprised to see me. 

On Monday I helped take inventory and prepare the summer camp classroom. This including making sure each camp had all of the materials they needed, as well as replacing a lot of things that were old and gross. It also involved going through and organizing a lot of cabinets with random things inside and trying to get the room in some kind of order. Callum and I found all of this all food in some of the cabinets and has to sort through it all and throw out all of the expired food... there was a ton of it from 2006 and 2007- so gross (see pictures below). 

Things have been really busy lately because everyone is running around trying to make sure everything gets done before camp starts. I'm excited for the campers to actually be here, although I'm sure that will bring a lot of chaos too!

 

So I don't have much of an update... Still finishing up my curriculum guide with editing and fine tuning. This week is more focused towards preparing for the summer camps as it is getting very close to when they will begin. 

I'm getting more comfortable with the Museum and the exhibits there. I want to learn as much as I can now so that when I'm surrounded by little kids and chaos I am as best prepared as I can be, though I know it's impossible to be prepared for everything.

This Sunday I am going to help with the junior volunteer orientation, probably helping Amanda with her session on how to engage children. I'm looking forward to being able to meet some of the junior volunteers. 

Nothing really else to report as of late, it's been kind of a slow week so far. Everyone have a good Memorial Day weekend?

Side note- new animal fun fact from my curriculum guide I'm writing- the Blue Whale is the largest animal in the world at 400,000 lbs. Its heart can weigh as much as a car, and its tongue can weigh as much as an elephant.

Weekend Training and First Day of Internship!

On Saturday I went to training for my internship at the Florida Museum of Natural History. I met Katherine; a supervisor in addition to Amanda, and got my shirts and name tag. I met the teachers that I will be working with during the summer camps they have this summer and I took a tour of the museum. It was incredible to see all of the extra space that is hidden to the public and used as offices or storage... the museum in twice as big as I first thought. We also learned about where we will be going our first day and what we'll be doing.

Yesterday (Monday) was my first day. I was a little nervous about how long it was (11 - 6), but it went really well! I got lost a lot (I forgot a lot of the places Amanda toured me on Saturday), but everyone was extremely friendly and helped me. When I first came in I got a key to all the secret places in the museum (super legit) and then began learning about curriculum guides. 

Curriculum guides are what the museum gives the teachers when they come to teach a summer camp, and there are all different topics. They have learning objectives, background information, and activities for the teachers to do with their students. The activities should be able to correspond to different exhibits in the museum. My curriculum guide topic is "Nature's Champions" which means the biggest, strongest, fastest, oldest, smallest, etc, animals. Yesterday I finished a whole topic on adaptations- because all of these characteristics that makes these animals "champions" come from adaptations that help them survive. 

It was actually pretty fun. I learned a lot of interesting things (like did you know the hump of a camel doesn't actually store water? It's all fat!), and it was really challenging to think of activities that kindergartens who can't really read or write would be able to participate in, as well as 5th and 6th graders. 

I'll keep you updated on what happens next!