DAY 2: Getting Out in the Field

Do You like Easter egg hunts? I sure do. Which is good because I did a lot of searching today for tadpole traps among wetland grasses which is a lot like hunting for Easter eggs. But first a quick summary of the day.

I officially got out of bed at 7:15 despite having light creep around our blinds at 4:30 am. Breakfast was continental...but the oatmeal bar was my favorite part. We spent the morning reviewing the the different types of field tests and how to fill out our data sheets.

After donning our very attractive waders, our team set out to collect data from our first pond.

 I was assigned to collect data from the traps which are pretty much just two plastic bottles stapled together with a little fishing line with some tagging tape attached which floats.
 The scientists would set 10 of these around a wetland pond and my fellow data collector, Ericka and I would have to go around and use our GPS to take the coordinates before dumping the trap into a bin where we would identify the tadpoles as Wood frog or Chorus frog and try to distinguish between two types of stickleback fish. I loved this process cause as not only was like an Easter egg hunt in that you had to look around on the ground (in grasses and in this case water) for the traps but you also got excited to find out what was in them! Most of the time there were just diving beetles and some fly larvae but we would get excited when they had tadpoles or fish in them.

The hardest part was after unscrewing the bottle cap on the trap, was then identifying the frogs.

According to Steph, the researcher studying frogs, the Chorus frog tadpoles have bulgy eyes on the side and the wood frog tadpoles have less bulgy eyes on top of their head. All in all I really enjoyed the task of checking traps and gathering tadpole and fish counts.

 There were so many other jobs like scooping sediment and identifying organisms in it, measuring the size and water quality of the pond, and then measuring growth rate of tadpoles. I will get my chance to do all of the different data collection types at some point during my trip.

Lunch was pasta, high in carbs which was crucial. We went out for a second set of data collection on a deeper pond.

This was fun because not only was the Easter egg hunt harder with the deeper water, and increased sedge, but we got to really put our waders to work.
I also learned about Butterwort a carnivorous plant and took a picture with one of the trees. They call them flag shaped because only one side of the tree has needles this is from the abrasive westerly winds of the winter.

Also notice the full basal skirt around the bottom of the tree. That was covered by snow in the winter so it was not exposed to the abrasive winds and therefore has it's needles/branches all the way around.

Once back at the lab, some groups had to finish processing their data but my group just had to clean the bottles. Because this wasn't a huge job, some of us were asked to collect data on the mesocosm tanks just up the road.

Mesocosoms are simply medium sized ecosystems where experiments are done in a controlled manner. For these mesocosms, temperature, tadpole concentration, and nutrient level were all used to create a 3x3 factorial design. I got to measure the depth of each tank during our data collection today while another volunteer looked for the presence of tadpoles and another checked to be sure the heaters still worked in the tanks that were receiving that variable.

Dinner was vegetable sweet potato curry over rice. Really delicious. Got to enjoy another of my Canadian beers during our lecture on climate change. I found this lecture fascinating. I always knew that the surface temperatures of the planet are increasing and scarily at a faster and faster rate. I always knew that greenhouse gases and the increase of them in the atmosphere was a contributing factor to the increase in temperatures. I even knew that so many components contribute to this increase in greenhouse gas levels (volcanic activity, solar activity, internal variability, and of course human actions like burning fossil fuels, and poor farming practices to name a few. But what I didn't know is the mechanism by which the greenhouse gases trap the heat. I never realized that certain molecules like carbon dioxide and methane actually absorb the energy from the suns rays and then get stretched or bend as a result only to snap back into their normal shape and remit the energy back into the atmosphere as infrared wavelengths (heat.) So fascinating. No talk yet about the effects of climate change and what we can do about it, but I'm sure those conversations are coming and I look forward to learning even more.

From the Concrete Jungle of Brooklyn to the Pristine Boreal Forests of Northern Canada

I'm back everybody and this time I have traveled to a place that is not so hot and not so dark for my summer trip.

  HERE), I am again impressed with the quality of person that EarthWatch selects for its teacher expeditions.

Yesterday, I flew for the first time ever to Canada. I flew through Montreal (lots of French, but fairly nondescript looking from the sky, really could have been just about any Midwestern city) and on to Winnipeg. I loved landing in Winnipeg because we flew over these beautiful fields of yellow flowers. I thought they were goldenrod but later learned that they were cultivated fields of Rapeseed. A flower whose seed is used to produce vegetable oil and sometimes bio-diesel.  Just some interesting fun facts I learned. The airports in Canada have all been much nicer than New York City and everyone is friendly and helpful. The hotel had a shuttle that picked me up. First thing I did when I got to the hotel was buy a water. I had to do a double take in my head about Canadian currency after handing the lobby-guy a $5 bill and then only getting 2 coins back. "Didn't he say $2?" I thought to myself. Only a few moments later, I realized that $1 and $2 currency in Canada comes in the form of coins, Loonies as they call them. (because the dollar coins have Loons on them.) I went to my room which was nice. My roommate I was assigned by EarthWatch, was Robin. She's from Boston and not only has she traveled all over the world, she's taught all over the world too! Being my second EarthWatch trip (see posts about my first trip
As a matter of fact, 4 other teachers that had arrived to Winnipeg early decided to go for a little walk to scope out some dinner options and after navigating some road constructions on foot, we managed to find a little strip mall with a hole in the wall sushi place that turned out to be delicious, hip, and had a mini train that circulated around the restaurant on an elevated track. Once back at the hotel,  I was exhausted and the last thing I remember before going to sleep was that Robin had to pull the curtains on our curtain because at 11pm it still wasn't quite fully dark.

We had to wake up early today to get to the airport in time to make our 7:00am flight to Churchill. As We got to the airport at 5:50 and were a little worried as there was a really long line for our plane. "Were not going to make it." One of the other volunteers said, But once we got up to the counter, the man checking us in was completely unconcerned. "The plane won't leave. There are still people in this line who need checked in." That is definitely not something you hear in the States. We didn't walk up to our gate until quarter til 7. We left an hour later. We'd had plenty of time.

Now, I know you're all wondering because I flew to the tiny town of Churchill, Manitoba (pop. 800), did I have to fly on one of those tiny propeller planes, and the answer is "No." We were in a 737! We had to walk outside to load it but it was a pretty large plane. Robin made friends with an Old Inuit woman who told her about the history of the region and was once a teacher herself. She also told her that the polar bears are not scared of the locals and she pointed to me because "We hunt them." But the Caucasians they are not afraid of, she said. I've been told I can pass for being of Spanish decent but I guess I look of Inuit decent too? She also was really confused when we landed. "Is this the right time?" She looked at her watch. "Yeah, we left a little late, so it is 9:15." Robin assured her. "In the morning or at night?" She asked. "I never can tell with the light like this." Robin and I looked outside. We wondered how bright it would be in the middle of the night if this woman couldn't tell the difference between 9:15am and pm.

The ride to Churchill Northern Studies Centre was beautiful. This part of Canada is very flat, with pools of water, jutting rocks, small funny-shaped pine trees, and lots of green. I like to think of it as BIG SKY country. It's like the sky goes on forever and it takes up so much of your field of view.

Once at the station, we had a delicious Taco lunch, got a tour of the space (incredible in so many ways...but more on that later), settled into our rooms and then did some introductions.

After getting to know more about everyone on the research team, we got fitted for our waders and bug jackets. You'll get to see these items in action in future blog posts.







We then took a little walk of the surrounding area around the station. Amanda, another researcher and our guide on the walk, had to carry a large gun. It is a protective policy to deter polar bears if we see any and they get to close. We didn't see any but the walk was beautiful.

 There are these old buildings for shooting rockets because they used to do a lot of meteorologist research here back before the 1970's.





We also got to see some more of the foliage up close.

There were quite a few mosquitoes and horseflies so I wore my bug net.













After the walk we went to town for a beer run. The liquor store allowed you to mix and match any beers in an 8 pack holder. Needless to say, us teachers stocked up.

I chose mostly beers made in Canada so I could get a taste of what's local.

 We also went to the Churchill grocery store. This was an interesting place that was small but had just about everything, a place where you could get your OJ and your ATV.

I just got some snacks including some maple cream filled shortbread cookies. The dry back to the research station from Churchill was again stunning.



Dinner was Chili. A nice way to reuse some of the ingredients from taco lunch and after dinner we had a lecture from LeAnn (the head researcher) and Amanda. She told us how we would be collecting data on Wood frog populations in order to see how they have been affected by climate change and increases in nutrient levels.

The last thing I did today was stay up until sunset which is pretty late here 10:18pm. I watched it from the Aurora borealis  observation dome. It was incredible. Tomorrow is a day full of training on the data collection tools and we get to try our hand at collecting some data. Goodnight from the not so dark parts of Northern Canada.

My Global Glimpse Journey

2 weeks into the trip and still smiling

This will be my final post about my Global Glimpse trip to Nicaragua, not because I don’t want to share more, but because I know with the impending school year quickly approaching, other obligations will present themselves as greater priorities. With that said, the day before we left to return back to the U.S., we had the students create these journey maps that walked you through some of the highlights of their “Global Glimpse” journey. After the 5 students I was sitting with got done sharing their maps, they asked me where mine was. I was a touched but also unprepared. I didn’t think they’d want to know my story and therefore I hadn’t made one. Until now; it isn’t beautiful and artistic, (I didn’t draw it out like my students.) but it is my Global Glimpse journey all the same.

Nicaragua, the beautiful

This journey/map has 4 parts: my five most significant moments, the most important lesson I learned about life, the most important lesson about leadership, and a description of the person I found most inspirational. Here we go…ENJOY!

5 most significant moments (from when I agreed to go- all the way to the present):

1. Deciding to go last August. I committed a year in advance and I can remember my excitement as I discussed the prospect of going on this trip with Eliza (the Executive Director of GG) on the phone as I sat on the windowsill in my kitchen. I never could have imagined then how powerful and incredible the trip would be, but I’m glad I agreed to the unknown only to have it turn out awesome!

Discussion is the new multiple-choice

2. Our workshops throughout the year, I have always been so explicit with my lecture teaching style but the workshops I did with my students throughout the year over topics like leadership, culture, poverty, aid/development, and history were all taught through Discussion-based techniques. This was a crucial skill to learn as a teacher. I hope to incorporate more discussion and Socratic seminar style processes in my science classes now.

We actually walked around and practiced our Spanish after eating these.

3. This next one is from the trip. On the day the students had the reality challenge, “Living like a Local,” the kids stayed with rural families and did chores and worked around the house with their hosts. Sarah (the other GG leader) and I could have just sat at the town leaders house eating mangos all morning, (they were delicious) but instead we wanted to explore and see what our students were working on. We walked around the small village of Iquisi with our limited Spanish, interacting with locals, finding where our students were working despite the language barrier. It was an adventurous morning.

The dream (leadership) team

4. Another significant moment on the trip was when I was deathly ill (or it at least felt that way at the time. It was just a 12 hour stomach virus, that still to this day my guts are rumbling from, but anyway), and being the control freak that I can be at times, was completely and utterly confident in Sarah’s (and Jose’s…this student spoke excellent Spanish as well as Denis and Melida to come to our rescue if we absolutely needed them) ability to handle the students for the day that I was out. Letting go is a big thing for control-freak people, like me so having Sarah to count on made all the difference.

Coconuts: practically celebratory.

5. This significant moment can actually be broken into four smaller moments. See, I would consider myself a non-public-displays-of-emotion kind of person. And well, it isn’t just that I don’t tend to be very emotional, but I tend to feel awkward and not always know what to do when others get emotional. There were 4 times during this trip when I overcame this challenge of avoiding the emotion in life. The first time was the first night. At 3 in the morning, Sarah came and woke me up, (Keep in mind; I’d been up for 24 hours before I’d gone to bed at 11pm that night, so I was extremely tired). Apparently, one of the girls was nauseous and not feeling well and wanted to go home. My first instinct was to want to tell this girl, to get it together (my sleep-deprived self at play here), but instead, Sarah, the girl, one of her friends and I had a middle-of-the-night pow-wow where we ate pretzels from the U.S. and talked about how it can be really hard being in a new place. By the end of the trip, that particular student made a map about how impactful and life-changing this trip had been for her.

Keeping a smile on your face is easy in a hammock.

Another student missed the biggest holiday of his religion by being on the trip, him and I sat in the parking-lot that night and I asked him lots of questions about what the holiday was like at his house to ease his home-sickness. He thanked me before he went to bed, while still sad, he didn’t feel as homesick.

One of my students from WP, walked out of a nightly

We all made it through somoto canyon despite the falls.

meeting really upset. When I followed him and asked him what was going on, he told me he really missed his friend that passed away in November of this past year. We both sat there reminiscing. The friend had been a student of mine two years ago. We cried and laughed together imagining what the trip would be like had the passed student been a part of it.

Finally, there was a section of Somoto canyon that was particularly difficult for one of the girls. She kept falling and hurting her knee. About 100 meters from the end, she had fallen her last fall. “That’s it! I give up! I want to go home.” She cried. As the health coach, I soothed her tears and splinted her leg using my arms as me and one of the guides swam her to a boat. It was a 50 meter swim but I kept telling her she would be ok, she was tough; we were all going to get through it.

Dona Francesca, an inspiring woman

There were numerous other evening walks with students giving them advice, or tough conversations and creative solutions for wild emotions that made students want to punch through walls. I worked to keep cool through them and not run the other way. By the end of the trip, I actually really enjoyed being a social and emotional support for students. I’d have never guessed that about the logical, analytical, unfalteringly-emotionally-flat person that I can be sometimes. I even cried as I said goodbye to Dona Francesca.She was this incredible matriarch who had starved most her life to ensure that her children had food to eat and even then her whole situation existed in extreme poverty. After she spoke to the students, many hugs and tears were exchanged, her words and presence had had a profound effect on the kids. As I said, goodbye, I told her thank you for opening their eyes. But as I said it, I began to cry. The kids later told me that they were proud of me for allowing my emotion to come out. See, I wasn’t only supporting them; they were social-emotionally supporting me too.

Floating on a tube in Masaya Lagoon

Hiking through Somoto Canyon

6. Ok, ok… So I was only supposed to do 5, but I have to say that there were a few times on the trip that I got to reconnect with nature: kayaking out in the middle of Masaya Lagoon, hiking through Somoto Canyon, and walking around Selva Negra. Being a country girl, who lives in the city, reconnecting with beauties of the natural world, is extremely significant to me.









Greatest Lesson I learned:

If I am going to have a more positive outlook on life, I have to surround myself with positive people. Thanks Sarah and all of you awesome glimpsers!

My students: one big explosion of positive energy!

Greatest lesson learned about leadership:

Always be open and observant because there is always something to be learned from other people’s style of leading.

Painting the Parc de Infantile for our Community Action Project

One person that inspired me most:

A new leader with different views?

David Thompson, the founder of La Casita, a small café that provides homemade bread, jams, and yogurt with an outdoor eating space, a wide backyard with a playground for children, an organic garden, and a wood shop. What I admire about David is that he just did his thing with life and it grew organically (literally).  He didn’t force it. He created something for himself and his family and demand grew unprovoked. Sharing your knowledge, your way of life, leads to a better more fulfilling life than out-competing others to succeed. These are the ideologies that David lives by. He believed that if you are just being a good person who is passionate about your own thing for yourself because you love it, the world will open its arms to you and naturally others will want what you have. Just be. Don’t force life to happen a certain way. Use what you’ve got and do what you love. I found this way of thinking to be very inspiring.

Ok, well that’s it. This experience was an incredible journey. One I will never forget and I hope to share another journey with students and Global Glimpse again soon!

Milking a Cow at La Garnacha as my students look on my work.

Getting at least one post in while still in Nicaragua

Dear Avid Fans and Supporters!

I am so sorry that I this is my first post about my Global Glimpse trip with 21 students in Nicaragua. I wanted to post everyday but our schedule has been so filled and well you know high school students, they often are quite demanding of one’s time.

Anyway, I wanted to write at least one post while here to describe some of the places we've visited, the activities we done, and the people we've met. I want to tell you a little about our routines and traditions as a global glimpse group, and I want to describe what I’ve learned as a GG (Global Glimpse) leader.

Here is a quick summary of where we went and who we met during the first few days of the trip:

·        

         History Day – Toured around the city of Esteli and got our bearings and then we went on a tour of the Esteli museum. Following our tour we had a showdown where the students made up silly dance moves to intimidate the other team before having a quiz off over questions from the tour, in an area known as “the plaza.” Here, many teens and college students in Esteli gather. It was actually the first opportunity for our NY students to meet some locals and try out their Spanish. We then had ice-cream at a local shop. It was delicious but tastes different from ice-cream in the states. It is creamier and less sweet. I kind of liked it that way. After our nightly meeting, we had our first self-reflection which involves students breaking into groups of 7 people and sitting around a candle in remote parts of the hostel as they discuss questions about what they experienced on their first days in Nicaragua.

      Culture Day- This day was jam-packed with interesting activities. We first went to visit this man named Alberto in the mountains. He was really inspiring to many of the students but first, before we arrived at his sculpture garden, we stopped at this beautiful mountain outlook. The view was stunning. (See picture of us adults having fun with a view in the background). Ok, back to Alberto, he was a prophet. He had visions in his dreams about things he’d never seen in real life and he carved all of it into rock. It was incredible. Many students were quite amazed with his story. Once we returned to Esteli, we participated in a Tusa workshop.

  
      Tusa is a craft created by a local man in Esteli that involved dying dried corn husks in bright colors, then cutting them into tiny pieces and creating a mosaic picture. We made greeting cards Tusa style. After our workshop, we had a dance class. Our dance teacher taught us some traditional Nicaraguan steps, and we taught her the cupid shuffle. It was an eventful day.

One thing I really liked about Global Glimpses structures was that each day a different student was the “Leader of the Day.” This was awesome because not only did it mean that the students developed their leadership skills through actively taking responsibility for the group on their assigned day, but it also meant that us adult leaders had another person to assist with group responsibilities. That meant that we didn’t have to wake people up in the morning, gather people for meals, ever have to do a count off to see if everyone was accounted for, or announce bed-time/lights-out because the student leader was in charge of those tasks. It was wonderful! Double bonus in its effect because not only did the student learn about what it feels like to be a leader and get to try out strategies to get the group to function well but Sarah and I had less tasks to stress about. Brilliant idea, Global Glimpse!

And every night we had a nightly meeting. This became one of my favorite traditions. During the meeting the leader of the day would summarize the day, then we would do something called, “thorn and Rose.” Each student would share something that was challenging from the day (a thorn), and something they really liked or enjoyed from the day (a rose). Then the leader would have someone read out the question of the day and a few people would share what they thought the answer was based on what they learned that day. Then the students would write about how to be better global citizens based on their experiences throughout the day. Then the focus was on group behavior. The leader would give pluses and wishes for group behavior. Then the group would give feedback to the leader of the day about what he/she did well and what they need to do to be a better leader in the future. Then the leader would pass the torch to the leader for the next day. This was always a momentous occasion. Andre became our ordained authority who would swear in the next leader by placing the leader necklace around their neck and handing them the pineapple scepter that Alberto bequeathed to us to the new leader. He’d ask, “do you swear to lead this global glimpse group to the best of your ability?” and after the person said, I do. He’d say, “by the power invested in me by the global glimpse leaders (sarah and I) I now make you leader of the day. Then the new leader would review the schedule for the next day. Sarah and I would give announcements and then it was “Big love” time. Big love involved giving a shout-out to any person who showed one of the 3C’s (courage, commitment, or compassion) during the day. Then we did a unity clap. This involved clapping with Alligator arms as we walk together until we are clapping in one big conglomerate group then we would say an inspiring, unifying word. And that would be the end of our meeting. Even though it often took 60-90 minutes each night, I loved the tradition and the positivity of this routine. It was the ending of a chapter for one leader and starting anew for another.

I also like that every time someone gave us a tour, came and spoke to us, or shared some knowledge with us; the leader of the day gave a small speech and gave them a gift. It kept a consistent undercurrent of gratefulness and positivity being shared daily.

Well I think this post has gotten long enough, I am going to sign off for now, but stay tuned, I will share more about what were the most significant moments during the trip, the greatest lesson I learned about myself and about leadership, and who I met that inspired me most. All of this, a re-cap of a few other days/activities and more pictures in my next post, so see you then!