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!