Playtime At Moosehorn

School finally finished up last week for the children of Washington County.  As in all the schools I've been involved with, the children get to to on field trips.  We had 60 children from our nearby town of Calais come to the refuge.  I was on the team that planned a set of environmental activities that the children could cycle through.

We had three teams of two people each that ran the activities.  Because I was running an activity, I didn't get to get pictures of the other ones.  But one activity was to play a predator-prey game.  The next one was to learn facts about deer.  Bridget and I played the game Oh Deer, with the kids. About one fourth of them start off being deer, while the rest of the children are habitat. At each cycle, the deer decide if they need food, water, or shelter, while the habitat group get to decide to be one of those pieces of habitat. While their backs are turned to each other, the kids make their signs for each part of the habitat. Then they face each other across a field, and the deer run to a child making the same sign.  Successful deer bring their habitat child back to the deer side, so the numbers of deer rise and fall, based on the success of getting what they need.

Bridget leading one of the groups in Oh Deer

Even under cloudy skies, the kids enjoyed the hike

I missed the grab shot, so this is posed but shows their Scavenger Hunt sheets

I don't know what they found but it was fascinating

The last activity was done by the by the teachers.  We gave them sheets of things to find and then sent them on one of the trails to see what they could find. All the children seemed to have a fantastic time. But one sad thing for me was, during the introduction, Peggy, our Office and Environmental Educational Manager, asked the children, who all live within 20 miles of the refuge, how many of them had ever been there. Only a fourth or less had.

Then yesterday - I'm writing this on Sunday morning because of a long day of work and play  - the Refuge held their annual children's fish derby down at Cobstock State Park which is on refuge land in our Edmunds Division, which is about 30 miles south of the Baring Division where I live and work.  Those of us working met at 8:00 at the maintenance area and hauled down tables, bags tof goodies to hand out to the participants, extra fishing poles, worms, hot dogs, buns, chips, cookies, drinks, ice and other materials to run the Fish Derby.

Families started coming in a little after nine and the excitement built as each participant  picked what they thought would be a winning spot.  around a large, stocked pond at the park headquarters. Parents set up chairs, and many opened tackle boxes, although all the kids fished with earthworms.

Finally ten o'clock arrived and the staff greeted everyone, went over the rules, and sounded the opening siren.  Fishing commenced, broken by announcements of prizes given by a drawing.  There were also prizes for the first fish caught and for the most weight of fish caught. The kids could fish until the siren ran at noon.  Then they brought their trout, which they put in the bags we gave them, in to be weighed.  Then the kids in three age groups who had the most fish by weight also won prizes. About eleven o'clock, Ray was grilling hot dogs, the red-skinned ones that are a Maine delicacy, and people were starting to trickle in to pick up a hot dog, chips, drinks, and cookies. It was soon a flood.  I helped dispense hot dogs in buns.  But by about twelve-thirty, most people had eaten, the prizes had been given out, and we were ready to load up the left-overs and head back to the refuge.

Kursten sets up the fishing poles we loan out 

Organizing the mess from unloading

Setting up the food table

Laurine, the OTHER volunteer setting up posters to give away

Bridget on left and Kristina registered everyone

The first fish caught - loved that it was a little girl and she won a PINK fishing pole

Fishing time  - that's Ray - one of my bosses, in the tan shirt,  helping his two boys

They start 'em fishing REALLY young up here

Amanda, our Law Enforcement Officer, supervises Mike who was chief hot-dog griller 

Murray, another boss, was the official fish weigher

We knew this day was to be the BEST day of June so far, so I planned to go to Campobello Island after I finished work. Bridget,  an intern, spends her weekends with her parents in Lubec, just across from the island,  and she invited me to stop at her house and see the foxes that live at her neighbor's house and the crows and ravens that her parents have named and feed. I then invited Kristina, another intern, and Kursten, a seasonal tech, to come with me.

We had a fabulous rest of the day, touring the Roosevelt summer cottage, a three story house with eighteen bedrooms, hiking and doing other touristy stuff. But that story will have to wait.

Through Their Eyes

Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge had five classes of kids coming to visit us over two days so there was a rush to get enough helpers to set up stations for them. I volunteered to work on two of my off days. In return, I got to take the kids on the boardwalk and help with the Pond Study. I also got to go check on the kids at the Chesser Homestead so got a few pictures of them there.

The Pond Study consisted of letting the children use nets to collect fish, snails, insects and insect larva, and microorganisms from the pond. Groups of five kids and at least one adult spent about twenty-five minutes collecting the animals and transferring them to their buckets.

Ranger Sarah helping with the capture

Oh, the anticipation when the net comes in

Minnows and a snail -from the first two turns at the net

 Then they brought the buckets to the table and looked at them with the microscopes. After everyone got to see several specimens of pond life, they put the animals back into the ponds.

Working on identifying some of the specimens

The sheet shows many of the possible insects

Fascinating!

When the kids visited the Chesser Homestead, they learned about life about 100 years ago, and then played some of the old games.

Keeping the hoops rolling is hard work

The trip down and back on the boardwalk took another hour.  Some of the groups got to see an alligator that lives at the first shelter, built over an alligator hole. And others got to see the great blue heron that likes to fish in that hole. Everyone got to see great egrets and some got to see anhingas, white ibis, and hear sandhill cranes.

This little water moccasin was in the exact place on both days

This goggle-eyed pig  frog was spotted by a sharp-eyed youngster

At the top of the tower

 Getting to work with young children in the outdoors is always most rewarding for me. They are so excited and intense.  I was even able to get 25 loud, excitable kids to sneak up on the alligator that lives at the first shelter on the boardwalk.  And they found the little water moccasin and the googly eyed frog.  This was a great way to spend two of my days off.

Kids Rule

All refuges offer an educational component that may include visits to classrooms, a reading contest where children read books about nature, special events with educational activities, and field trips for classes where part of the time spent on the refuge is spent doing active learning.

Staffer Kris with his first group, getting ready to learn about the fish at Malheur

 We sponsored a field trip day last Monday for the two third grade classes from an elementary school in Burns, Oregon.   I didn't get to find out much about what the other volunteers and staff were doing, but we had four stations and the kids spend thirty minutes at each station.  So each volunteer or staff person presented the same activity four times. These  field trips are a lot of fun for the kids and I love helping with them.

My current volunteer housemate, Teri, visits with a student while waiting to collect her first class

The kids received field journals with a couple of pages devoted to each activity

At my station, the kids learned about different bird beaks and feet.  We talked about what a bird looks like and about different beak types. Then they got to go into the George Benson Memorial Museum and search for birds that eat different kinds of food, seeds, mammals, insects, etc. While they were in the museum, they also drew a bird, in their journals, paying special attention to it's beak and feet.

"Birds" collecting food with their "beaks"

The kids really got into this activity.

Then they came back out to the picnic tables and became birds. They all used their "beaks" - tweezers, clothespins, spoons, or scissors- to pick up various "foods".  Finally we counted up all the foods they were able to get with their beaks and discussed which beaks were best suited to each food.
 
The final part of the day was a tree planting to commemorate the day and to give the kids another incentive to come back.

The tree was a tiny cottonwood started from a cutting last year

The kids, their teachers, parent aids, and the instructors all had a wonderful time and hopefully all of us learned something about the environment and our role in protecting our native plants and animals.