Once more with the trash can volcano.

We presented this lesson at a local library and set off the volcano on the back patio. We weren't sure what would happen since we usually do this on grass of sand. The concrete gave it a great hop!!!!

Hoo Hoo Lives in Hull's Gulch?

We have a pair of owls that nests in the cliffs near our office. From what I have been told, they have been there since the facility opened in 2005. They usually have 3-4 offspring, but it looks like they only produced 1 this year. We use this often for our lessons as baby owls are a great attention getter. We take the kids on a hike and set up spotting scope where they can observe from 150 yards away.

Here is a mother and baby hiding under a sagebrush. Notice the mother in the bush? Photo: Jan Vinney, Seattle

Here's a good shot of the baby in a tree. It is about two months old here. Photo: Jan Vinney, Seattle

We also have red-tailed hawks that nest in the area. Their nest is directly above a hiking trail ans we can often see the young poking their heads over the side of the nest to observe us. We hike out into a nearby meadow and set up the scopes. One day, a large female landed right above us so no one needed binoculars to see HER.

Red-tailed hawk watching my group.

My group watching the red-tailed hawk.

Bees are fun for any age.

I am generally more comfortable with older students. I get a little nervous when I have a lesson for kindergartners, especially if I am doing it myself. I did this bee lesson with a group of little ones and they are just so fun! I couldn't resist posting some photos of their beautiful artwork.

Service Groups.

One of the things I was able to accomplish as an AmeriCorps volunteer was to help the organization develop a way to handle incoming service-learning requests. I made a simple database that they can use to match requests with activities. Since it's inception, the program has had over 100 volunteers perform almost 300 hours of service!

These photos are from an TRiO Upward Bound group that came out to work and learn.

Weeding and cleaning up our pollinator garden.

This driveway is neglected and overgrown. They got it cleared out in no time.

The group poses in front of our signature art piece.

My First Summer Camp!

Truth be told, I went to my first summer camp many many years ago in the 1970's. I spent the day on the beach and got a really bad sunburn. The staff called me "lobster boy" for the rest of the week. It was fitting since my dad was a crab fisherman.

This summer, however, I got to lead my first summer camp. Coordinating outings, buying snacks, and planning for every activity was a lot more time consuming than I thought. Fortunately, my AmeriCorps partner Sheralynn has done this before and had some great suggestions for making things run smoothly. We had two sessions of camp and by the second one, I was feeling like a pro.

The camps were some of the most fun I have had yet. Having the same group for a week gave me a chance to bond with them and learn more about who they were. Although this was camp, we tried to teach when we could and followed a hydrology theme for the week. I am looking forward to more of this type of activity. It's fun to recognize them when you are out other places.

Posing for a group photo at the top of Bogus Basin on day one.

Day two features a loooooong hike down Hull's Gulch. At the bottom we have root beer floats!

Midway down the hike. The group all gets matching bandannas to promote team thinking. They also dunk them in the creek to stay cool.

The first week couldn't float the river because it was too high so we went to the Birds of Prey center and met a falcon.

Float trip on week two was super fun (and wet)!

This sneaky snake was hanging out in a tree along the bank of the river. Crafty!

I was worried that they wouldn't want to go in the water. I think I was worried for nothing.

On Thursday we got to visit the Boise River Wildlife Management Area where biologist Krista Muller talked to them about how animals get food and water, and the importance of good habitat.

Krista took us to the wildlife underpass where we got to pose for the wildlife cameras.

In the afternoon we got our feet wet looking for macroinvertebrates in the Boise River.

Friday we visit the Hyatt Hidden Lakes Reserve to learn about wetlands and have a photo safari.

The whole thing ends with a big water fight at Ann Morrison park!

Idaho @ Play Day!

This is one of our required service days as part of our AmeriCorps placement. We all met at the Serve Idaho conference and began planning for an event. We identified the Whitney Community Center as the location for our activity since the after-school program is well-attended by a large population of under-served students. Our goal was to provide a fun, active kick-off to summer. The event was a hit with over 80 students and adults participating we had 10 different activities, but the two most popular (by far!!) were the box fort building and bicycle rodeo.

The AmeriCorps team that put the event together. Special thanks to Sheralynn (front, in grey) for being the coordinator.

It was cool to be inside the box fort!

Looking for extra-large Jenga? We had it!

The bike rodeo was a huge success.

Lots of drop-in games were available and everyone got a Frisbee to keep!

I was able to get bikes donated by the Boise Bicycle Project and we had a member of Safe Routes to School from the YMCA come and teach the kids about bike safety. We even had a boy who learned how to ride a bike that day!

Fun With Physics.

One our most popular lessons is our lesson about volcanoes. It is not because people are super interested in sedimentary rocks and liquid hot magma. It is because we blow up a trash can at the end. To be correct, we fill a soda bottle with liquid nitrogen and submerge it in a can full of water. When the bottle ruptures, water and tennis balls fly into the air simulating a volcanic eruption. On this day, we had some extra liquid nitrogen so we poured it in a puddle so the kids could see it boiling and steaming.

Watching LN2 boil on the ground.

I like the exercise because they are a captive audience and the experience brings out a lot of questions. "Why is it bubbling?" "What would happen if....?" "Why doesn't the water freeze?" All of these questions show that you have opened up the learning and curiosity channel of their brains which is difficult to do. I would like to know more about what triggers this openness so I don't have to blow up a trash can every time I need their attention.

Snake!

I am afraid of snakes (it a real thing, called ophidiophobia, look it up). They have no fins, feathers, or feet, yet they move around all sneaky and silent. They fit in small spaces, climb trees, swim in the water, and even leap from tree to tree. The other day I went to check the locks on the way out of the building, turned around, and saw this guy right in front of me! I took a picture and ran away. I've gotten much better since I see them almost every day now, but I am still leery.

Gopher snake on our front bench.

My Favorite Picture.

This is my favorite picture of kids learning outside. We were doing a hike to learn about how water moves through the ground. It was a warm day and I asked them if the water would be cold or warm. Since the stream was small, most said that it would be warm. After discussing where the water comes from, I told them it was actually quite cold. Within a second, all of them were face down on the bridge with their hands in the water! I love this photo because it reminds me of how curious children are and how eager they are to experience things.

The importance of a support system.

This was probably one of my best days in environmental education so far, and it was a day when everything "went wrong".

Last week we had to be flexible. After that, we had to be flexible again....and again.....and again. The Secretary of the Interior wanted to use the FLC for an event. The problem was that we had 75 3rd graders coming at the same time. We worked with the school and came up with a schedule that would allow us to do our classroom portion of the lesson and get out before the site was needed for the meeting. We planned on hiking to a nearby park to eat lunch and do the second part of our activity, but the weather was NOT on our side and very heavy rains foiled our plans. We decided to load the buses and take the kids to another park with a shelter, but there were six buses there already and the shelter was full. We ended up eating in the band shell at a nearby park which was a special event for them and for us.

We taught the second half of our lesson and then the weather suddenly improved. We were off on an impromptu hike to look for birds along the river down town. My group headed west and soon came upon the Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial. I took the opportunity to share the story of Anne Frank and the sapling that we received which is a descendant of the same tree that Anne Frank wrote about in her diary. The kids were exceptional listeners and showed a great deal of respect for the moment. I was very moved by their model behavior on an exceptional day.

What made it all work was that we had a support system that functioned very well that day. The bus drivers were willing to make unscheduled stops and find a place for lunch. The teachers were willing to alter the lesson plan to accommodate the schedule change. My fellow staff members were willing to alter the lesson plan and teach it anywhere. Finally, the students themselves stayed curious despite the rain and constant change.

I hope I have more days where nothing goes according to plan!

Community outreach.

Most of my job is spent going to classrooms or hosting field trips. When the opportunity to go to a school carnival in my neighborhood for a community outreach event, I jumped at it. Suddenly I was a representative of an organization. The thought didn't occur tome until I got there. I was setting the expectation for anyone who would later interact with the FLC, Boise Parks and Rec, AmeriCorps, and educators. Fortunately for me, I brought a worm composter and stickers, so I was a huge hit. While the kids were busy mining for worms, I had the opportunity to share our activities and mission with the adults. I think I definitely recruited a few new visitors to our next 2nd Saturday event.

Our display table. I put it together myself and was pretty proud of it.

A panorama of the carnival in the school parking lot. Food music, kids, and a DJ. The weather was awesome that day too.

Just kids being awesome!

Kids really are awesome!!! They have tons of energy and loads of curiosity. Any time I am tired or lagging in the morning, I just get around a group of 3rd graders and I absorb enough of their energy to keep going for at least a day. I hope that I can get them as excited about learning as I am about teaching.

First graders lining up to use a spotting scope to see baby owls! I've never heard "they're sooooo cute!" more times in my life. Look how awesome these kids are, waiting in line patiently to see owls. Setting a tripod at 1st grader height requires some yoga moves.

Another awesome things about youngsters is how willing they are to volunteer for things. During our camouflage lesson they get to take turns showing the pictures to their classmates. They all want to do it, so it is a great way to bribe them into being still and quiet.

These 3rd graders got to pick a "uniform" to wear on field trip days. They picked tie-dyed shirts! How awesome is that?

Bullfrogs were spotted on a trip around the pond.

Big weekend.

This was quite a weekend. Not a whole lot of education to discuss, but some reflection. Friday was my 43rd birthday and on Saturday, I graduated from Boise State after starting there in 1991. It took me almost a quarter of a century, but I finally graduated with degrees in Geoscience (hydrology emphasis) and Biology (ecology emphasis).

This accomplishment marked my commitment to education and studying earth science. The amount of time and money that was sacrificed to accomplish the goal was significant, but not painful because my wife and I knew that this is what I was meant to do. Now that I have a solid education to match my interests, I will be starting grad school and the McCall Outdoor Science School in August where I will be improving my education skills.

Have you ever sniffed a Ponderosa Pine?

Sometimes our students think we are kidding them. That is definitely the case during our trees lesson. When I tell them that Ponderosa Pines has a distinct smell, they don't believe me. After I get them up close and personal, they become believers. The thing that strikes me in this exercise is how much children automatically trust you when you are an educator. I am also impressed by how willing they are to jump in and try to learn new things.

Sniffing a Ponderosa. Try it, you might be surprised!

"Bee" the educator that you want to be!

One of the greatest parts of this experience has been learning about new subjects. One that I have found very interesting has been bees. The social structure, life history, and physical attributes of bees are all fascinating. My AmeriCorps partner Sheralynn updated our bee presentation and it has been very popular. We had a class from St. Mary's Catholic School come to the FLC and we got to teach them about bees. We have an awesome observation hive here with glass walls that we use to show kids the bees in action. I think a lot of permanent memories are made with this feature. One of the other things about this lesson is that it includes some physical activity which is always a good thing. Students perform a waggle dance and their hive mates have to figure out where they've stored the pollen. Smiles are always guaranteed.

One of my favorite pictures is this group running down the hill after finding the pollen.

Henry demonstrating a bee's adaptations!

We take kids to the bee garden and show them our 5 hives. They get to stand feet away from the hives and watch the bees go to work.

Fun with word clouds!

Just for fun I put my blog into a word cloud generator and displayed the 50 most common words that appeared so far. The results say a lot to me about which parts of my job are the most interesting. The words that come up the most often are the largest. I like what came up!

P.S. "queen" refers to our hive that swarmed, not the band!

A picture's worth a thousand words.

Not much to say here, I just thought it was a fun picture of one of my groups on a hike.

Earth Day Birthday

The Foothills Learning Center celebrated it's 10-year anniversary on Earth Day. We had live music, a great big cake, lots of visitors, and some over-sized lawn games. We stayed pretty late that day, but it was a nice, relaxing evening.

This is the design I made for the celebration cake. We have a giant dandelion sculpture in our parking lot that has become an icon of our facility.

This little girl picked up two sticks and started playing along with the band. Very cute!

Families are a frequent sight at the FLC. This giant Jenga was popular at the party.

The giant Jenga was feeling lonely so we added a comically large croquet set.