Week 12: WHAT?! IT'S Week 12 ALREADY?

This week has been a busy one! We have so many things happening at the center right now it's hard to keep up. I have been given a list of goals and tasks that the center wants me to perform in a timely fashion as well as everything I need to finish for PSU. The experience here at the ECVC is different than what I expected, but good different! One of my new tasks is to inventory ALL of the props we use here at the center and create a catalog of everything we have to offer. I am truly seeing the importance of keeping everything organized and maintaining records of their uses. Along with this catalog, I created a sign-out procedure for the props as well. Volunteers often take props to use at events, shows, and school visits. By using a log book, we can be sure to keep track of where the props are going and also what types of events they are being used for. This type of record keeping is not only good for here at the center, but could be very useful to a teacher as well. I know from my experience with Mrs. Weaver that keeping track of the material that you might use for various labs, especially with CASE labs, can be a very daunting task. By creating a catalog, or even a spread sheet, you can always know what you have and how many of those items you have. When a number reaches a point that you know it isn't enough, you order more, or budget for more.

Along with the inventory monitoring, I had the chance to work with the Elk County & McKean County Conservation Districts. This was a really great experience as I was able to help them as much as they helped me. I was able to talk to their groups about the conservation method we utilized while building the center such as, regenerative forest, biomass boiler, gray water flush system, and our bio retention ponds. At the end of my session with them we started talking about the forage plots and our management with them. They were happy to hear we are re-evaluating our management system and were eager to offer us advice. One thing that they discussed with me was that right now there is no way to create a good verifiable management plan. The reason for this is because unlike farm pastures, we do not know how many elk are grazing each day, or which fields they are grazing in. The said we could try different methods and crops, but until we know how many elk there are and where they appear, there is no good way to make sure our treatments are accurate for the use of the plots. This information made me happy, and sad. I was sad because my students at Twin Valley worked so hard to create a management plan with the PGC and Berks County Conservation District. However, the plan that they created will still be used, just in a modified way.