Such. A. Procrastinator.

So I am always thinking of interesting things to blog about, but the life of a teacher is always so busy that I forget to do so. So here's some highlights of the past while:

1) This past year I ran a buddy program between my students and the students at my alma mater (high school, not college), Berwick Academy. The kids exchanged letters (and mine got the occasional prezzie), and it was a really great experience for all. Since the alma mater is a private school, it was definitely a different crop of kids, and the school credited me with opening a lot of their kids' eyes to the issues that other students (like mine) face in this country. Every summer they do one or more service trips, and they asked if they could do something for us. This coincided perfectly with the need to get work done in our outdoor classroom, as we'd gotten a $10,000 grant from Lowe's (as well as $5000 from our local councilwoman), and we were able to host 10 students from Maine to work with about 8-10 of mine in the outdoor classroom. It was an amazing experience. The students built benches and wagons, a patio, raised garden beds, and a pond, and refurbed the memorial garden we have for teachers, staff, and students that have passed away. I also spent the evenings taking the visiting students around town, introducing them to our fair city of Louisville: the Lakeside Swim Club, Lynn's Paradise Cafe, Glassworks, the Louisville Slugger Museum, Bearno's, Buckhead Mountain Grill (and fried green tomatoes), Falls of the Ohio, and a Louisville Bats game. We even took the visiting students and mine on a canoe trip on the Salt River - the canoes were replicas of the ones Lewis and Clark used, which was pretty cool. We ended up in the local paper both here in Louisville as well as in the local papers back in NH/ME. We even ended up on TV. The buddy program is continuing this year. I hope they'll be able to make it down to us again.

2) I am now sharing a classroom with the Environmental Ed (aka Career Choices) teacher at school. It's an old art room, so we each have our own half. It's actually working pretty well, and I'm really enjoying it. I have room to put the desks in pods, so that the students can easily work in groups of 4, and I've got space to walk about the classroom. I'm learning a lot from observing him - it's interesting to see how someone's class runs every day. This is especially important, as they seem to be grooming me as his replacement. We talk a lot about issues with students, teaching, and environmental education.

3) Environmental education in general is a burgeoning issue for me. I'm taking Introduction to Environmental Education at UofL, and if the EE endorsement gets off the ground I think I'll get my Rank I with EE as the focus. I attended the KAEE conference again this year, and it was great. I got a lot of resources, and it was great to be able to see more of the state. Additionally, it was one of those moment where my eyes were opened about environmental issues. For example, while the vegetables we have obviously came from somewhere, it never occurred to me that there would be wild grapes in Kentucky. They apparently make muskadine wine out of them. Another amazing thing was the ecojustice tour we took around the city - the stories I have to tell. Once I get closer to the writing pieces I have my students do for their state portfolios, I'll elaborate on that further.

I also took a tour of the 21st Century Parks system in development here in easter Jefferson County. Between this non-profit group and the Metro Parks system, they are buying up all the land along Floyds Fork, and they'll be creating this amazing 21st century park. It will include the typical sports fields and the like in the northern half, but it will be more natural in the southern section. They're revitalizing the river, ponds, and wetlands. They will be bringing back sections of old growth forest, as well as potentially including sections so that you can see various stages of succession, as well as what functioning Kentucky farmland looks like. There will be hiking trails, sections of the 100-mile bike loop, and a whole river to canoe. I had no idea that there was that much free land left in Jefferson County, and that it could be that rural. I was so amazed. The whole idea of it is mindblowing, and the knowledge I learned about the local geology, archaelogy, and ecology was just...wow. Wow.

Hopefully I can continue to be more up-to-date, posting more often. We'll see, at least.

EE Conference

So, as my school is trying to become an environmental education magnet, I was given the opportunity to go to the Kentucky Association of Environmental Educators Conference this Friday and Saturday in Cave City (and by going I am now a member of the organization for the next year). It was an amazing experience, and I can only hope that I am able to go to the conference again next year. I came out of it with a lot of new ideas for my classroom, and I'm really quite excited.

Friday I went on an all-day off-site session called "Tying the 'ologies Together: A Hands-on Adventure at Mammoth Cave." We actually saw more than just the cave itself, as they took us across the area to three other sites where we were able to see the karst terrain that is geologically connected to the formation of the caves (which happen to be the largest in the world). We were able to see the sinkholes that form from the dissolution of limestone rock, just as the caves do, as well as a spring where water leaves the caves and runs to Echo River and a cross-section of the rock layers (with a few fossils in them!). The caves themselves were amazing - I'd never seen anything like it before. The miles and miles that water has carved out and dissolved away and the different features it leaves behind - wow. As well as the unique creatures that live there - didn't get to see any bats of salamanders, but saw cave crickets and blind (and transluscent) crayfish.

The Saturday sessions were, by and large (well, 2 out of 3), very good as well. The first was put on by a facilitator from Population Connection, where we got a CD full on great activities related to population growth, resources, and consumption. There was a great video that showed population growth across the world throughout world history - it really highlighted the rapid growth since industrialization. We "mined" for chocolate chips in cookies, played an activity that dealt with resource allocation and what happens when people don't consider the needs of others while they consume, and played another activity that dealt with the carrying capacity for environments. Good stuff.

The second was called "The Science Behind Global Warming," which was led by Doug McCoy of the Louisville Zoo (who does a lot else besides working at the zoo, it seems). There were a lot of great little activities that I hope to use with my students during our school's environmental kick-off week next year and possible later on this year as well. I learned more about global warming for myself besides, so that's good.

I of course came away with some books because I am helpless that way. When you add in the delicious food and the concert Friday night by Walkin' Jim Stoltz, it was an exceptional conference (the not so good final session I went to aside).

Overall, I was really pleased to see how many people are commited to improving environmental education - of course, we all struggle to teach our children about all this while trying to deal with the restrictive curriculum and testing we have to do. (I often find myself wanting to expand and include things and then gnash my teeth in frustration as a I cry, "but I don't have the time!") There are some people doing some really amazing things out there, and I hope to learn more from them as time passes. We really need to get our kids engaged and commited, for their own sake, our sake, and the sake of our planet (and the future). Not only that, environmental education engages them so much more and opens the door for better, deeper understanding of concepts. I really hope that I can figure out how to work this all out for my kids.

(And in a final note, as it must be said: I love conferences.)