SEAD

A few times each season, we have a SEAD day here at Pok-O. SEAD stands for "Staff Enrichment and Development." These days are days for us to expand our own knowledge about topics we teach about here at Pok-O, both to provide professional development for staff members and to further improve our program.

On Monday we had a SEAD day in Montreal. Our primary destination was the Biosphere, Montreal's Environment Museum. Most of the current exhibits focus on the St. Laurence River Watershed, which includes Long Pond! Most of what we teach about watersheds in our Pond Ecology class focuses on the water that is going into Long Pond...so it was really interesting to learn more about where our water is going when it leaves Long Pond.

We also were fascinated by the structure of the Biosphere. The museum is housed in a giant geodesic sphere. The sphere was originally built as the U.S. Pavillion at the 1967 World's Fair. After the Fair, it remained a popular tourist destination, until a fire destroyed that outer covering in 1976, leaving only the frame of the sphere behind. Eventually a new building was built inside the sphere to house the Environment Museum, though the outer covering was never replaced.

The sphere was designed by R. Buckminster Fuller, a visionary architect, engineer and inventor. Fuller was devoted to sustainable design, and spent his life designing buildings, cars, and other technology that would help reduce the number of resources used by people in their everyday lives. Fuller was well ahead of his time on the issue of environmental sustainability...he was thinking about these issues as early as the 1920s!

After we left the museum, we took some time to walk around the old city in Montreal. Perhaps the highlight of this point in the day was when we passed a restaurant that had decorated for Halloween with gibbets! Brian was very excited to see them. (Read the post about Haunted Homestead to find out why...)