Field Studies: SMAN DSRC Tour

Today I was able to teach a program I developed for the San Miguel Academy's 8th Grade, Junior Rangers. The program is called, A Day in the Life of a Conservation Scientist, and it taught once a year in the winter time to the SMAN gentlemen. I was able to teach this last year and after some tweaking from how it went last winter, I was able to restructure it and teach it again this year.

This program was modeled off of the Murie Museum programs that the graduate students would teach over at Teton Science Schools. The 8th graders rotate through stations that reflect tasks, jobs, and duties that our staff of the Conservation Science department do on a daily basis.

The students also get a tour of the Daniel Smiley Research Center's archive room where many of Daniel Smiley's specimens and historical data of the Shawangunk Ridge is housed. I am super proud of this program. The students get to examine skulls, herbarium specimens, archaeological specimens, taxidermy birds and mammals, collect weather data, and much more.

From what I hear, the boys really like this program as you do a variety of things inside while the weather is super cold. Also, seeing the specimens up close and hearing the stories behind many of them is super fun. If there is time, we take the boys up to Mohonk Lake (always a special treat) and they assist with collecting lake data.

I think this year's program went super well - got a lot of great feedback from the other educators, the SMAN teachers and students, and from the Conservation Science department. I cannot wait to revisit this program and make it even better for next year!

It's been really nice to actually create new programs for the Preserve (than just teaching pre-made ones). I feel that when I get to make new programs, I am actually using my degree to its fullest. I was super proud to definitely develop, implement, tweak, and re-teach this program for the second year in a row.

TheChristyBel

A Skull Study - Examining Mammals of the Ridge

Getting the DSRC Tour from legendary, Paul Huth

Studying Birds

Examining Native American Artifacts

Identifying Different Avian Adaptations

A DSRC Tour for the SMAN Junior Rangers

So far during this new job, I have been teaching programs that have already been brainstormed and written up. Today, I was able to create a whole new program for Education that revolved around the Daniel Smiley Research Center. Since I work in two different departments, I was chosen to lead the San Miguel Academy's 8th graders in a Daniel Smiley Research Center-based program. 

If I have not already explained this, the Daniel Smiley Research Center is where the Conservation Science department is housed. The DSRC is home to our collections room where Daniel Smiley kept specimens of flora and fauna that were discovered on the ridge, even archaeological, Native American artifacts found in rock shelters on the ridge, and it houses over 120-years of weather, lake, and natural history records.

Originally, this program was planned to have a snow-shoe hike around the Mountain House property. However, we have not been getting much snow to make snow-shoeing possible. So, we had to put on the "flexi-pants" and come up with something else. I decided to do a rendition of the Murie Museum back in the Tetons.

I created a workbook/DSRC journal that focused on up to 8 activities that allowed the students to float through stations for about an hour. These activities portrayed similar activities that our staff and research associates perform at the DSRC. So, it was basically a "Day in the Life of the DSRC" tour. Below are some of the stations I created.

TheChristyBel

Station 1: Bird Identification Using Specimens, Guides, & Observation

Does this plant have alternating or opposing leaves?

Station 2: Understanding the Herbarium

Identifying Birds

Station 3: Mammal Identification Through Skull Anatomy
Station 4: Examination of Native American Artifacts (in the background)

Herbivore, Carnivore, Omnivore?

Station 5: Measuring Precipitation from the night before

Station 9: Visiting Mohonk Lake to Obtain Lake Samples