Week 14: So Many Elk Talks, So Little Time!

Here I was thinking that things would get easier after I started to settle into the ECVC, boy was I wrong! This week was the busiest week yet with school groups. On Tuesday I had the opportunity to meet with the Shippensburg HS NRM Class! It was great to be able to see one of my fellow student teacher's students thought Skype! It was really fun for me to teach a high school level Distance Learning Session as most of the sessions are elementary. I was able to not only talk about elk, but wildlife management as a whole. One of the things I like to tell older students, is that wildlife management is often not about wildlife, it is about people! This is a topic that is hard to teach to younger students, but high school students seem to grasp the concept that wildlife management is about the perception of the wildlife. For animals that are perceived as "bad" because they may have a behavior or a trait that humans don't desire, there is little to no help going to the preservation of the species. Animals that are cute or help humans in some way get all the attention.
Later in the week on Thursday, we had a group of 3-5 year olds that visited the center. I never really knew how hard it was to keep a group of 3-5 year olds' attention! Interactive story time lasted about 2 minutes and then it was on to exploring the Great Room! I was able to hold their attention there for about 10 minutes before I lost them again! Next stop was the 4-D story theater, this actually worked! Except when the theater played the fake rain storm, and there was thunder, two of the children ran out in tears! We calmed them down and got them back just in time for the snow that falls near the end of the show! This cheered all of the children up, and had them excited to go for a trail walk!

On Friday Barb and I taught 9 consecutive sessions of Distance Learning to 3rd graders from West York School District as part of their Pennsylvania Day! I have done multiple sessions before, but never 9! I tried my hardest to teach 4 sessions in a row, but my voice couldn't make it. Thankfully Barb saved the day and taught some of the lessons so I could rest my voice! I never knew how much energy it takes to deliver the distance learning sessions. After thinking about it though, it is mostly teacher centered because of the virtual learning that occurs, due to that we use a high energy lecture style.

Overall, this has been a very productive week, and I even hired my first employee! We help interview that I planned and coordinated. We interviewed 3 candidates for the Conservation Education Specialist Position, and all of them were highly qualified! Their interviews only made the decision tougher! The panel of 4 that held the interviews discussed what we thought was good and bad about each of the candidates and held an open discussion of our thoughts before deciding on the right candidate.