Poetry

This will be my last blog on this site, for more info on my research project please see the group blog eeersgg.blogspot.com

Today we wrote poetry, this is my poem:

We are flesh made only to forget:

We are flesh made only to forget

to heal our wounds and evaporate our losses

but the mind remembers

always

streams of thought

interrupted

found in dreams

memories of things never experienced

lives that must have existed

must have existed

Why is the life I don't lead so familiar?

why do I feel the ripples of water travel through my skin as I watch a stream flow?

why do I feel the racking in my jaw as a squirrel sucks the sweetest juice from a maple tree?

why do I know the weighty silence of the immobile life of a rock?

I wish I could feel the way salmon

j

      u

    m

   p

their flesh stretching and pulling against the thrashing of white water

I know the taste of their flesh in my mouth

when all the movement has died out

it is nothing but the palest pink-easily dissolved

Why do the lives and deaths that are not mine feel so familiar?

why is it my flesh can not forget

that all of life lives within it.

Thanks for reading, and thanks to all the great teachers and classmates in this summer program!!!!

Facilitations and Blue Bell greenhouse

Today was a busy day.  Starting with the two facilitations was great.  I really liked the activity that Lynn and Erin did during their presentation.  Having the questions on the tree cookie was a great way to tie the activity to the reading.  Their slideshow was great as well, seeing all of the old pictures really gave me an idea of the scale of these giant white pines that were being logged.  As well as showing me what a feat it must have been to transport them over the land, it makes sense that in the spring they just shot them right down the river.  I bet that is an interesting sight to see.  I remember when I was in Alaska going to a lumberjack demonstration, it was pretty awe-inspiring.  They sped up trees supporting themselves with a blade pushed into the tree.  They stood and ran on top of the logs rolling on water.  It definitely took some skill and determination to be loggers.

I found Lizzy's facilitation really beneficial as well.  It was good to consider different communities and how best to conduct inquiry-based activities given the resources of specific areas.  Inquiry-based activities definitely require flexibility on the part of the teacher in order to truly make a good match between students, resources, communities and projects.

Our project group did really well today too!  We started researching the plants foudn on the boundary between the conservation land and the development.  The plant that stuck out to me the most was the Indian Pipe.  It has a very surreal appearance, almost alien, no wonder its nickname is the ghost or corpse plant.  It is white with a tad bit of pink at the center.  It does not conduct photosynthesis because it lacks chlorophyll.  It gets its nutrients by participating in a parasitic relationship with the forest trees and fungus.  It was great to have background knowledge of plants I have been learning to id in the forest.  I look forward to being out on the land tomorrow finding more plants to identify and learn about.

After a long time in the computer lab our group got to visit Blue Bell greenhouses.  They were having a huge plant sale which was very tempting for all of us.  But we got down to business and talked with the owner and a very informative woman who worked in the greenhouses.  They gave us some leads on what plants to recommend to the new homeowners.  Although some of the plants recommended were not native they were cultivators, a new term for me.  In the end I did succumb to temptation and buy one Thai Basil plant, a good reward for a hard days work!

Projects and Pedagogy

We're starting our research today, but definitely already feeling the time crunch.  The three P's are closing in proposal, project, pedagogy.  I am psyched about our project I think it will be fun and hopefully useful too.  There is nothing worse than spending loads of time on something that will have no effect whatsoever.  I think this project combines the best of both worlds for me, I can learn the plants and expand my knowledge of ecology and I can research some of the interesting social aspects, what the plants are used for, etc.  Plus I get to draw, which is always nice since I hardly ever have time anymore.

I am not exactly sure how the pedagogy paper is going to work out right now.  I think I am very intuitive when I write and I do not take well to specific structure, I like to find my own structure and come to new knowledge as I write.  Writing can help me to sort out my thoughts, but when I feel too restricted I end up writing with the passion of a scientific report.  Hopefully, I will find a way to work out my thoughts with the restrictions.  My main idea right now is focusing on interconnectedness and our dependence on the environment.  It is hard to define because my personal value is that nature has worth outside of its human connection, however, I believe when teaching students it is best to teach with the focus on natures interaction with people.  We are all inherently self-centered, this is not necessarily bad, it just means that we think in terms of ourselves.  I think making nature less foreign and more a part of ourselves will increase our capacity for empathy.  And therefore will cause us to treat nature in a less exploitative way.  I enjoy thinking in these philosophical terms and I do think I carry them with me as I act in the world.  I think I need to examine my life and actions thoroughly before I begin to teach.  It is so important to live what you preach.  But I do not think people should be too hard on themselves, they should do what they can, everything they can, but not wither away in guilt.

Project Time

Today we decided on our projects that we will work on for the next three weeks.  It was a bit hectic, lots of ideas which only spawned more ideas but we finally narrowed it down.  We are a group of eight divided into a group of four.  We are going to examine the new developments going up around the Headwaters.  By investigating the vegetation along the boundary of the developments we will establish a baseline which hopefully future UNH groups can use to determine the affects of the development.  This aspect we will do as a group of eight, covering as much land as we can and trying to identify all species of vegetation on the fringe.  Then comes the second part of our project.  As a group of four we are going to create a guide to the land for the new homeowners.  The guide will include information on the plants, appearance, name, how to identify, role in the ecosystem, human usage, etc.  The guide will also provide guidance for homeowners in term of how to live in harmony with the plants on the conservation land, we will dispense advise on gardening, lawn care, local resources, etc.  We also hope to have time to investigate the conservation laws specific to this area.

I am very excited for this project and I hope it will make a difference!  Tomorrow we start surveying the vegetation!

Wetlands and tree coring

It was beautiful today, sun filtering though the canopy of the forest without the oppression of humidity.  We spent our afternoon exploring the forest in some new ways.  First, we learned the definition of a wetland, which is somewhat long winded so I won't get into that here.  Just know it has to do with hydrology, plant types and soil types.  We set up a spot to survey 10 meters in diameter and from there we found the 3 most plentiful species of tree, shrub and herbaceous cover.  Turned out that there were maple trees in all three categories 20 ft tall, three ft tall, and tiny baby saplings.  There were also a lot of high bush blueberries just coming into season.  These two examples of vegetation indicate a wetland.  However, there were some plants that didn't belong, white pines, witch hazel, etc.  This just showed us that the beaver pond had experienced some recent flooding and the forest was undergoing a successional change.

Then we learned how to use GPS equipment, it was way more complicated than the one that talks to me in my car but very interesting all the same.  And last of all we cored trees.  This was one skill I was excited to learn.  We screwed the corer into a soft hemlock and a hard maple and oak.  My muscles got a work out but after some effort we got our reward.  A thin extract of inner tree.  The rings were very defined not yet having dried out, we could get an accurate age count of the trees and even examine their growth cycles for signs of disruption due to climate change or other environmental factors.

We ended our day brainstorming project ideas, we will be starting next week so stay tuned for more....

Tracking

Today we trekked though the Barrington Headwaters led by trakker Dan Gardoqui director of the White Pine Learning Center in Maine.  Dan was awesome, his enthusiasm was infectious even in the 90 degree weather.  Some of the animal species we encountered included a small Garder snake, a wood frog, scarab beetle and a hermit thrush fledgling which we helped back to his nest.  We also encountered lots of evidence of other species, aka. poop.  There was deer scat, hard little pellets, moose scat dry and larger, flying squirrel scat tiny like gerbel food, and a whole lot of porcupine poop.  In fact there was about two feet of porcupine poop piled in front of a hollowed out tree, their home.  Circling away from the tree were porcupine trails, the leaves were flattened from the use and an occasional quill could be found.  There were some other signs of the animal life as well, bite marks on the sugar maples indicated sap tapping by the squirrels.  They dig their bottom teeth into the bark and drag the top teeth along the bark to pull out the sweet tap underneath.   There was also signs of death in the forest.  The skull of a female deer between 2 and 3 years old, with its teeth still jagged ready to do more chewing.  But in the forest some good still came of this, besides being a source of food for the larger carnivores, rodents also chew the skull for a precious source of calcium.  So that's a brief synopsis of life in the Barrington woods today July 9, 2008....

Scavenger Hunt