Twitterpated

Welcome to my first entry in my first ever blog. I began the Intensive Summer Institute for UNH's masters program in Environmental Education just two days ago, and I will be making daily entries to journal my progress and experiences. Twitterpated is a word we use in my family to describe when something or someone is very very excited. That is how I am feeling. I feel like I have been bombarded with exciting new information. In addition to that I have met exciting new people and been exposed to a whole world of possibilities. The first day here we were already outside, a crucial element in any program for me. I was initially intimidated by the vegetation plot studies that we did, but it really wasn't bad. Actually I kind of liked it.

Yesterday we spent the majority of the day in the woods doing a scavenger hunt of sorts. We explored the Barrington Head Waters and examined (carefully) five different sites. Together we postulated and pondered the histories and stories that might have made the landscape what it is. To follow that we read the first chapter in Tom Wessels "Reading the Forested Landscape." as an assignment for homework.

Today we spent more time at Tamposi and visited a local farmer and listened while he told us the history of the place. Place is something we have spent a lot of time discussing. I think intrinsically I understand and know the importance and value of knowing a sense of place, but I am still working on labeling the value of it. While I hate labels I understand their importance and in thinking about engaging kids it would help me to define a hook.

I was comforted with some words in Wessels' introduction. He wrote about how learning about the forces that helped to shaped a place was empowering. This brought my mind to seeing the natural places we visit as not just scenes. Instead it allowed me to think of them as stories. The trees and other things there are characters but the forces are verbs and adjectives. Stories are a lot easier to relate to. There is a good hook there.

In addition to these musings, we had two facilitated activities to help us debrief our readings. Our classmates did a fantastic job.


More tomorrow, Bug Lover-