6/27 Week 5: My First Field Trip and Guest Visitor

I had to take the last week off, but I am back with some exciting events from this week.

The theme of this week's camp focused on animals from my understanding. Given the various extra activities on the schedule, I did not get to see all of the scheduled class activities. The kids visited the nature exhibition in order to learn about the natural environments animals live in here in Florida. In terms of the regular class activities, the class created pet rocks and clay animals in order to get them thinking about animals. We also had the kids build spider webs and fly around like hummingbirds to show how animals behave in the wild. While these class activities were fun, the real highlights were the special activities. 

Starting with the field trip, this week went to the WonderWorks located on I-Drive. If you haven't been to a WonderWorks before, it is a science museum chain filled with various games. While some of these games are standard games, most of the games feature educational lessons about pressure, force, and more. I ended up being a field trip supervisor leading six of the kids around the place. This ended up being my first time being in charge of some of the kids as a teacher. My responsibilities as a teacher mainly involved being a chaperone for the kids during the trip. I had to keep track of the kids as they explored the second floor. The kids really enjoyed the bubble lab, simulators, and the other hands-on activities. While the kids had fun at WonderWorks, I preferred the other surprise of the week.

Flick the Gopher Tortoise
The other visitors came from the Central Florida Zoo bringing multiple animals from their educational ambassador program. The animals consisted of a tarantula, a leopard gecko named Shrek, a corn snake named Cobb, and a gopher tortoise named Flick. The zookeepers explained how these animals came into their possession and how these animals impact the environment. Shrek is a former pet that serves as an ambassador of potential invasive pets. If animals like Shrek break out into the wild, they could negatively impact the environment. Cobb helps teach the importance of having animals like snakes eat pests like rats. Flick served the most important role. He highlighted the importance of gopher tortoises since it is a keystone species in Florida. Building many burrows, the gopher tortoise creates homes for over 150 species in Florida. The kids also learned how gopher tortoises are a highly protected species that you have to leave alone. Despite his protected status, the kids got to touch Flick before he went home. 

Despite the smaller scale experience compared to WonderWorks, I think the kids ended up learning more from the animal visit. Since there were less distractions in the museum, the kids soaked in a lot of the information during the hands-on experience. As the halfway point approaches for my internship, I am thinking about a potential project that involves creating a summer camp plan with what I learned from the classes I have been in. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

May 16th Blog Post: Introduction

 Hello, I am John Hill and I am a graduate student at the University of Central Florida. I currently work at the Universal Orlando Resort. I moved to Florida very recently in 2022. Before then I lived in Georgia since 2008 and I was born back in 2000 in NC. My hobbies include gaming, history, and nature. My current research interests involve a focus on cultural history in the 20th century in the United States. I have a major interest in the creation of amusement parks, wildlife reserves, and advancements in home entertainment. Currently, I am aiming to make my thesis involve the rise of the video game industry in the late 20th century or building upon a recent digital project I made as part of a spatial history class. This second project covers the "fall" of the video game arcade. Instead of failing, arcades changed how they appear and manage their businesses, such as entertainment centers, kid zones, or restaurant hybrids.  As for what I want to get out of this internship, I...
Read more

May 23th Internship Blog: Setting Up an Internship

While my internship begins on June 2nd, I do have something to discuss for this week's post. For this post, I will cover the process it has taken to reach this point in my internship. This journey began back in February when I applied for two internship positions. One position was for the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and the other was for the Orange County Regional History Center (OCRHC). After waiting for a couple weeks, I figured that I did not get the position at either place. Soon after I thought that two emails appeared in my inbox. The Smithsonian told me that I did not get the position. Meanwhile, the OCRHC asked me to meet over Zoom for an interview. I met for a brief interview over Zoom a week later, and after that I received an offer to join their team as a Summer Educator. It turned out that my job experience at the Universal Orlando Resort translated well to the potential challenges of being a Summer Educator. An obvious requirement involves being able...
Read more

7/11 Week 7: Catch Up Post and Project Planning

Image
Helmeted Guineafowl at Bill Frederick Park Given the 4th of July break, I'll condense the past two weeks into one blog post. Both of these past weeks had field trips, but I really just served as a chaperone for them. One field trip saw us go to Bill Frederick Park while another had the Florida Film Academy visit the History Center. Both of these field trips had educators from the park and the academy handle the lessons, so we simply watched the kids and made sure they behaved.  Animal Bones (Bear and Cow Skull along with Deer Antler) The class activities for these past two were somewhat similar to previous weeks if you have been reading the blogposts. Both weeks had the kids visit one of the galleries at the history center.  One week had them explore the pioneer gallery and another had them handling some animal bones as a part of an animal focused week. I spent the animal week helping the kids measure their punching power with a sparring tool and then escorting them to Frederi...
Read more