Project WET and Sierra Nevada Journeys Workshop by C ora

August 13, 2009, Thursday, my last day with Linda, this day came too fast. Seems like this whole thing started a week ago, and I am sad to say good-bye. I’ve met wonderful people I hopefully will see again, and I hopefully will see Linda again.

Well to start things off about today, we drove up to Sand Harbor at Lake Tahoe, to have a fun day in the sun and do a Project WET workshop with Sierra Nevada Journeys. Mary Kay put the whole thing together, and Pat was in charge of kayaking from Sand Harbor to Thunderbird Lodge. We did a little ice breaker, go to know one another, and then we’re paired off onto the kayaks. Of course me and Linda were together. The water was calm and peaceful and looked so silky and smooth you just wanted to fall asleep on it, well I did anyways. A young woman, no older than in her twenties, told us history about Tahoe as we were paddling and we actually stopped above a school of fish. When we arrived at the little beach we set up canopies and got everything ready for the activities. Linda and I started things off with two posters and six questions per team, teams were separated through an invisible line on the sand. If you answered the question correctly on the first clue you got four points and if you got it on the second you got three points and so on, but there was only four clues. After that we got pieces of paper and you crumpled them and then traced the top of the wrinkles with brown and then you’d add green for plants, and blue for water, and that was an activity to make your 3-D watershed. Linda and I presented the Incredible Journey.. Everybody got to make a water cycle bracelet and, at the end, tell their journey. After this activity was completed, we all got to have our lunch break. Pat told us about the house over the water, the Thunderbird Lodge, so after we settled our stomachs we headed over to the house. Since the waves and the wind were picking up we had to quickly migrate back to Sand Harbor after loading up the kayaks once more. The ride back was rough but it was challenging and fun. We got soaked a few times from the crash of the waves but it was nothing we couldn’t handle. Safely to the shore we unloaded and got into groups of six and had to defend and a make a solution for the problem we were given. Nick from Sierra Nevada Journeys was in charge of this activity and got us ready for the problem. The problem was this: Las Vegas is taking water from eastern Nevada and eastern Nevada needs water from the Truckee River. We were given a role to play, like acting, and you had to state why you thought the way your card told you. In the end we figured that we should use our water more carefully, and that Las Vegas should think again about taking our water. After the little groups gathered again to our big we all told our stories and solutions. Then Mary Kay talked to us for a while about the books we passed out and we started looking over some activities the teachers could do in the classrooms. Then as the day was hot and we were all tired Mary Kay decided to wrap up the day. This was my final day working with Linda and it couldn’t have been better.

Carson River Summer School Field Trip by Cora

July 21^st 2009, Linda and I worked with fourth graders teaching them about the Carson Watershed. They got into ten groups of four and sat around a map each group was given and we played a game kind of like ‘Where’s Waldo?’ I would pull out an animal pelt and Linda would say what it was, and at first I walked around with it so they could feel the fur but then Linda would take them from me so I wouldn’t have to. This was my very first time working with the animal pelts, and I was very uncomfortable. I couldn’t show the kids me emotions because if I was reacting weird to the pelts they would too. Well anyways they would find that animal on the map and then touch it. After that we ventured on for our hike down to the river. We stopped at the little wetland we had spotted before and we explained what wetlands were and how they were good to the environment. Linda and I did the activity about the wetlands where they pull out an object from the pillowcase. Every kid wanted to pull something from the pillow case, and they would crowd around me so I couldn’t move, and after they would pull they wanted to pull another one. So I ended up telling them to leave my area after they got to pick. A little girl said, ‘I haven’t picked yet. When are you going to let me pick? You’re not being fair.’ After that I didn’t let her go. Leaving the wetland was hard because the kids didn’t want to move. When we got around to the river, Linda played a game with them where they were detectives. They had to look around the river in the area we were in and decide if it was healthy or polluted. It was healthy, they decided. After we left from that little area, Linda and I walked down to a part where we had seen fishes the other day we were there, and little Jose followed us. Linda got a rock with bugs on it, but as we were walking toward the group of kids the bugs started falling off, so she got a new rock when we reached them by the river. The day was hot and no shade from clouds only trees, where ever you could find trees. It was fun working with the kids because they make you feel young again. A few little boys were saying songs that their friends made up that were around when I was there age, and they were drawing the same things I did when I was that age. It was just really pleasant.

Greenwings Festival at Canvasback Duck Club by Cora

Giving up a Saturday isn’t always what someone wants to do. I don’t like giving them up but I made the exception for this particular Saturday. Linda took me out to Stillwater where they were hosting a kid event sponsored by the Canvasback Duck Club. The project that Linda and I did was about wetlands. We both had one pillow case and we would have things in it that the audience would pull out of our bag. We’d ask them what it was and how they thought it resembled part of a wetland. The audience was always shocked when they would pull out a box of Corn Flakes cereal, and they’d say they had no idea what it was for. Well Linda would say, ‘in the morning you go and pour yourself a bowl of this because… (Pause)….because you’re hungry right?’ Then the kids would say, ‘oh yea!’ We were also right next to the booth where they painted the decoy ducks, so that booth was super busy and a few kids thought they had to go to our booth before they could go paint one. When ever we had some parents bring over their kids we would make them reach in the bag and pull out an item. So we tried to make it fun for everyone. We had some wetland soil and when we would explain what wetlands were Linda or I would open up the container and tell them to smell it, and Linda tried really hard to get the reaction of some of the funny faces they made but she wasn’t quite successful. At lunch time Linda and I walked around the room to see what was going on inside, they had exhibits of duck wings, duck drawings for a contest, darts, and a silent auction with some pretty neat stuff. They had boats and guns outside we had heard about but we didn’t look around outside to see what they had outside. We met a lot of new people, saw some very cute little kids, and although people thought this event was for boys there were a lot of girls there too.

Water is Peter's Best Friend by Cora

For my first project working with River Wranglers we created a flannel board. It’s titled ‘Water is Peter’s Best Friend’. The story is about a little boy named Peter, who has a best friend named Willy the water droplet. Willy tells Peter where water is and how good water is for everything. The flannel board is going in the Children’s Museum in the Carson River Watershed area of the museum. This project took quite some time to color and since I loved coloring I thought it was fun, now I don’t find coloring so fun, maybe not for a while. We presented the flannel board to Margie, Genie, Sue, and Mary Kay at an education working group meeting. It was the first time we had actually seen it fully together and complete. That was the point when I realized that it was finally done. Everybody who we presented it to thought it was it good, and they liked the colors we used. We are making another one, so hopefully this one can get done quicker now that we know what we are doing.

UNCE Environmental Festival by Cora

At the UNCE Environmental Festival at Fuji Park, our table (Linda and me) was H2Olympics. Linda taught about cohesion by having people use a water dropper and putting water drops onto pennies. The average guesses that people had were about four or five, but actually twenty or more was what they ended up with on their penny before it over flowed. A little boy said, ’Wow! That’s really neat! How can it keep the bubble on the penny like that?’ And that’s when Linda would tell them about cohesion again. The second part of the Olympics was there would be a cup full of water and people would try to put on as many paperclips as you could onto the surface of the water but they couldn’t drop or it wouldn’t count. This one was for learning surface tension, and it was compared to the little bugs that can walk on the water in the river or pool. A lot of people (of all ages) thought this was pretty neat. The last one we did was to show adhesion, and I’d have a full cup of water with a wet piece of yarn running down to another cup that was either empty or had some water in it. Place my finger over the yarn in the far back of the full cup and run the yarn down to the other cup and hold it right above it so you can see the water dripping. Then pour the water cup down so people can see the water running down the yarn and into the other cup. It was the biggest attraction and many people came over just to see it! ‘I want to try it!’ ‘Can I try it!?’ ‘That is so cool!’ were what we heard most of the time we did that activity. When the people coming around to booths started slowing down Linda and I would water color for our newest project and since Margie had a booth next to ours we had her come over and watercolor too. Before lunch Linda and I walked around and met some new people that were working the booths and we got a free tree each, Linda got a cucumber plant, I got a lanyard about being drug free, and I got to make a bird feeder at the wildlife booth. We learned about some of the fish they work with and Linda got a bracelet in the colors of orange and a peach to resemble fish eggs. The Nevada Museum had a booth their and they had pictures of bears and snakes and coyotes, and they actually had rubber coyotes poop and Linda picked it up and was playing with it. I thought it was real and was getting really grossed out by this action she did until she told me it was rubber and she wouldn’t really touch coyote poop. The Museum exhibit also had bear scat, and they had three different kinds of snakes soaking in water and they had five types of lizards also soaking in the water. They had two snakes fully preserved and out in the sun so you could see them. They kind of scared me a little. Another thing they had was bear and coyote fossil foot prints. Those were my favorite thing they had. Today was really fun, and being outside all day was a blast, luckily the health man had sunscreen for everyone.

The Incredible Journey at Empire Elementary School by Cora

Wednesday, July 15^th, Linda and I went to Empire Elementary school to teach 3^rd and 4^th graders about the water cycle. The project we did was The Incredible Journey, where you become a water droplet and you start some where in the water cycle. You start out with the sun bead, then you get placed, when you are at your starting point you put on that bead. After you get the bead you roll the die that is there and you go to wherever the die tells you to go in the water cycle. We taught three classes, and after I watched Linda teach the project in the first two classes she decided I was ready to teach the third class. So I would tell the class where you can go if you were in the part of the water cycle and what color bead you get. Then they were off. After all that my job became ‘The Tier’ and I would tie the bracelet off after they had gotten twelve beads and then put the bracelet on their wrists. A few of the kids didn’t follow directions and would roll the die, decide they didn’t like the spot they had to go to and would wander around to get the color they wanted. I caught them in the act and tattled to Linda. Then they pulled off the misplaced beads and put them back in the correct containers. I usually am a good teacher but I cannot keep the attention of little kids. So this was definitely a challenge, not having attention and not following directions. At least it was my favorite activity that I got to teach. I am very glad I got to teach but I wouldn’t do it again unless I was forced to (or Linda asked me to again).

Comstock Workers Wrap Trees at River by Cora

On Wednesday, July 8^th, the Comstock Workers program teamed up with the Dayton Valley Conservation District to wrap trees with wire for protection from the beavers. Blake Hiller was our leader and had planned on jobs for us to do. At first he had us pulling up dead White Top weeds from around the river bed. After that was accomplished Blake took us for a walk on the trails right around the river so we could learn about the damage that beavers were doing to the Cottonwood trees. Blake showed us how to wrap the trees so they would be safe from beavers and would still be able to grow. We then were put into groups and were given a new roll of wire and a pair of wire cutters. Around 10 o’clock Linda came and was helping out. Linda and I became a pair instead of a group and we went off to wrap some trees. We had to rewrap some of them, but then we got to wrap our own. We wrapped seven trees together over all and were forced back to our site to eat lunch. When that part of the day was through and everyone was gathered, Linda had an activity planned. Now earlier that day she told me I was going to be a beaver and asked if I would mind, because some people might laugh at me. Well I thought she was just kidding. She talked about the beavers for about five minutes, and then called me up to help her. I stood there thinking I was going to have to talk about what I knew about beavers or something but boy was I wrong. Linda started dressing me up like I was a beaver. She put flippers on my feet, a balloon under the raincoat for my lungs, gloves with plastic finger nails on them, goggles, a belt with a dust pan on the end for my tail, and just all kinds of stuff. Meanwhile a beaver pelt was being passed around. Nobody really wanted to touch it so they would a signal for the person to pass it to someone else. After all this, the day at the river was through. We went back to the community center and got our checks, and were told we were going to be wrapping trees down at the river again on the 29^th.