Goodbye Adam!

As Stites mentioned in his post yesterday, today was Adam's last day working at Pok-O this fall.

Here's a classic photo of Adam that Liz took today: Adam just after throwing a frisbee. Among Adam's many contributions to Pok-O, he instituted the tradition of the staff playing frisbee while the kids load onto the buses before leaving.

We will certainly miss him, and hope he'll be back again to visit!

MId-Season Report

We have turned the corner on our fall season. During the month of September, we averaged around 80 kids at PMOEC each day, but that number has been cut in half for the months of October and November. This is giving us a little more time to focus on our After-School Programs with different local schools, our curriculum and program development and, of course, our Community Events- Haunted Homestead, Underground Railroad and plenty of others. Also, we are about to say goodbye to our seasonal instructor, Adam Reed, who will be leaving at the end of this week. I had heard wonderful things about Adam from last year's staff and from all of the Pok-O-MacCready Camp employees, but unless I had seen his expertise with our students, I would not have believed it. Adam has the patience of a monk and the energy of a bumblebee. Combine those with his intensely optimistic disposition, and you've still only scratched the surface of one of the more genuine individuals I have had the chance to meet. Adam will be missed as the days grow shorter and the temperature drops, but he will be welcomed back with open arms if he chooses to return in the spring. That's all for now from the Director's desk.

Astronomy and Pizza!

On Saturday night we hosted an "Astronomy and Pizza" event for families in the local community. Despite the rainy weather, we had a great turnout, and the event went really well.

We started the evening by having everyone make their own pizzas. We had lots of toppings to pick from, and I don't think that we had any two pizzas topped the same way!

While the pizzas were cooking, we headed outside to talk about our solar system. We were making a scale model of the solar system, starting with an 8-inch diameter plastic pumpkin as the sun. We talked about how big the planets would be in relation to that size sun (the Earth would be about the size of a peppercorn), then spaced out lanterns to show how far each of the planets would be for the sun. This was quite a hike, since each step represented 3,600,000 miles. (We were really tired by the end of it.) The vast distances in space can be somewhat hard to comprehend, but this activity helps you see it a little bit better. To help give you some perspective: using this scale model, if we were going to place the next closest star to us (Proxima Centauri) in the model, we've have to travel all the way to somewhere south of Philadelphia.

After our trek across the solar system, we headed inside for dinner. The pizza was great! I think that most of the people at the event could get a second job as a pizza chef if they wanted to.

Since it was raining, we weren't able to go outside to look at stars, so we set up our constellation projector on the ceiling of the dining room and did a little indoor star gazing. Liz told the stories that various cultures have made up for the constellations over the ages, helping us understand how people in the past made sense of what they saw in the sky before they had the technology to help them learn about it scientifically.

There are still quite a few community events to go on the schedule this fall, so we hope to see you there. Some of the ones that I, in particular, am looking forward to are the Wildlife Tracking Hike on October 17th and our Underground Railroad simulation on November 6th. And our Haunted Homestead program (October 23 and 24) at the 1812 Homestead is always a lot of fun! You can find more information on these events, plus all the other great ones we have planned, here.

We hope to see you at an event soon!

Dreary Fall

It has seemed like there have been more rainy days than nice ones in the past few weeks, making this a pretty dreary fall. It's hard to truly appreciate the colors in the trees when they're lit by gray light rather than sunshine.

But even in gloomy weather, it's worth the trip out to see what's going on in the woods. If nothing else, the rain has at least resulted in an amazing array of fungus, as seen in the following photos.

(Thanks to my father for letting me use the photos that he took while he and my mom were up visiting me last week!)

NYSOEA Conference Reflections

First off, let me say how wonderful it is to be wanted. I am really excited to be a contributor to the PMOEC Blog and, oh, do I have some things to blog about. But today, I will limit my comments to this past weekend's New York State Outdoor Education Association annual meeting. This year we descended upon the Holiday Inn in Fishkill, New York. I was joined by Brian, our Assistant Director and Julia (aka Thriller), our Marketing Director. We were excited to meet the representative from the Northern region, Gary "Griz" Caudle, who replaced our very own Jack Swan on the board of NYSOEA. We also were pumped to check out the low ropes course at The Sharpe Reservation, borrowing some ideas to create new stations and repair old ones at our own low ropes course. Overall, we all were able to learn some new things at the conference that will help us make our classes better and better classes are always our goal. Next time I feel the need to post on the blog, I promise to include pictures, but for now, you will have to imagine the beauty of conference rooms inside a hotel.

Old Classes Made New Again

Our curriculum is constantly evolving as new people come to work at the Outdoor Education Center and bring new ideas with them. For many classes, this evolution is a gradual process--a new activity might be added one season, then someone thinks up a new way to explain something the next. Everyone once in a while, however, a class might undergo a significant overhaul.

Last winter we began the process of revising our curriculum. For most of our classes, this meant rewriting the existing description to match the way that we've been teaching the class recently. There were a few classes, though, that we don't teach very often here (since the classes that we teach depends on what classes our clients request), and many of these rarely-taught classes seemed like they needed some serious work.

One of the classes that got serious attention was our Revolutionary War simulation, formerly known as "Time Quest." (These days we're calling it "Rev War Sim," though the name is still under debate.) This class asks students to think about how the war might have affected some of the people involved, and for the students to come to their own conclusions about which side they might support in the war.

To begin the class, the students review what they already know about the Revolution. They then are asked what they would like to know. These questions are then recorded for the groups to take with them to the main portion of the activity: meeting and talking with various people involved in the war. These people represent a range of view points of view. In the photo below you can see some of the people that they meet. From left to right: A British soldier, a patriot woman, a Loyalist woman who is a camp follower for the British army, another British soldier (who has suffered an eye injury), and a revolutionary soldier. (During the activity, we don't all sit together...we were just enjoying the campfire while we waited for the students to arrive.) The students also have a chance to meet a member of the Mohawk tribe.

These characters all have diverse back-stories and beliefs about the revolution. One of our goals is to show the students the full range of experiences that people in the colonies had during the war.

We hope that seeing this range of perspectives will help the kids to make their own decisions about the war. At the end of the evening, we ask the kids to stand on a "value line," from die-hard patriots to completely loyal subjects of the king, with every shade of grey in between. The kids then get the chance to explain to their classmates why they chose to stand where they did. We have taught the "new" Time Quest a few times since it was unveiled last spring, and every time we have been very impressed with the careful thought the kids have given to forming their opinions.

Time Quest is not the only class that has been rejuvenated; Orienteering was also completely reworked last spring. Climate Change and Nature Crafts are on the docket to be worked on this fall...stay tuned for further updates on those two!

Are You Allergic to Goldenrod? (This is a Trick Question)

Fall may bring crisp, cool weather and beautiful colors in the trees, but it also brings fall allergies! Many of us (me included) suffer from runny noses, sneezing, and watery eyes as the seasons change, and we look around for something to blame. For many people, their eyes are drawn to goldenrod.

When I was growing up, one of the cardinal rules in my house was that we shouldn't pick goldenrod and bring it inside, because it would set off my father's allergies. As I grew up and started developing seasonal allergies, I also assumed that goldenrod was to blame...imagine my surprise when I learned that this beautiful flower is falsely accused!

It's easy to understand why so many people blame goldenrod for their suffering. Whenever they sneeze, they can look around and, most likely, see the showy golden flowers somewhere nearby. But in actuality, the very showiness of the goldenrod's flowers should be our clue that it is not to blame for our allergies.

In general, plants with showy flowers are showy for a reason: to attract their insect pollinators. Since these plants rely on insects to carry their pollen from plant to plant, the pollen is generally too heavy to be carried by the wind. Therefore, the pollen from these flowering plants is rarely to blame for your sneezing!

The true culprit is generally growing somewhere close to the goldenrod, but is much less likely to be noticed: ragweed. As you can see from the photo below, ragweed is a fairly nondescript plant. Unless you know what you're looking for, it's easy to miss.

This year seems to be a particularly good year for ragweed--it's growing in every corner, and I've seen some truly mammoth plants. So if you are a fellow allergy sufferer, get ready for an intense allergy season!

First Aid Training

Yesterday the Pok-O Staff finished up our first aid certifications. We all are certified by the American Red Cross in "Responding to Emergencies" and "CPR/AED for the Professional Rescuer." It's good to have this training, but spending hours on end in the class tends to make us all a little loopy. Luckily, we were able to direct this loopiness to good use in our practical exam, when we bandaged Adam up for almost anything we could. In the photo below, he is treated for: A possible skull fracture, a neck injury (kind of...this isn't actually how we would treat a neck injury), a broken forearm, and a cut on his other arm. Only the fact that it was time for dinner prevented us from splinting a leg or putting him on the backboard!

First Aid Training was the last part of our staff training. Today the kids arrive! Two hours and counting left!

We're Back!

Pok-O-MacCready Outdoor Education Center is back from our summer break!

Every summer, things here at Pok-O change considerably as the Outdoor Ed Center takes a step back and the Pok-O-MacCready Camps take over active use of the site. Instead of school groups coming here on field trips, several hundred summer campers arrive to enjoy a few weeks of hiking, swimming, boating, games, and all the other activities that come with going to camp.

As the end of August rolls around, however, the campers head home, and the staff of the Outdoor Ed Center gear up for another year of visits from schools, scout troops, after-school programs, and all the others who visit between September and June.

Our season has been off to a busy start, with a full schedule of staff training! We have a mix of returning and new staff members, so we take the first week and a half to review all the classes we teach here and get ready for the arrival of clients. So far we have completed all of our team building courses, gone over our ecology classes, gone mountain biking, canoeing, and have hiked two of the four Pok-O-Patch mountains. (And that was just in the first four days!)

There are a number of familiar faces on our staff this fall: Stites McDaniel, our director, never actually left over the summer. (He just spent a lot of time in the office.) Brian DeGroat, who was an instructor last year, is stepping into the role of Assistant Director, and is doing a great job. I (Molly Smyrl) am back again as Program Coordinator, while Liz Pierson is taking over as Naturalist. Adam Reed, who was an instructor last fall, is back for another go as well. Mike Gast, our chef, rounds out the list of returning staff.

We also have four new faces as well--three on our teaching staff, and one in the office. (The photo is the new instructors goofing around on top of Rattlesnake Mountain.)

Mark Scott (on the right) is our Climbing Director. He worked at summer camp last summer, and now is here for the fall. He grew up about ten minutes from Pok-O, and has a long family history here---we have reason to believe that he's the first person to be a second-generation Outdoor Ed instructor; his parents worked here in the '70s.

Julie Warren (on the left) is a new instructor this fall. She's one of two Julia's on staff this summer (we have a new marketing director who is named Julia), so Julie is desperately hoping that she'll get a nickname (she's never had one before.) If you have any suggestions, let us know.

Madison Andrus (in the center) is our fall-season intern. This internship will give her the last credits that she needs to graduate from Missouri State University. She's a life-long girl scout, and since arriving at Poko has acquired the nickname "Mad-dog." (Julie is upset that Madi got a nickname before her.)

As mentioned before, Julia Backus is on board as our new Marketing Director. Julia has worked at summer camp for 4 summers, but now gets to experience the thrill of a full winter at Pok-O. In keeping with our pattern of nicknaming everyone except Julie Warren, Julia has recently been nicknamed "Thriller." She's also fond of card games.

All in all, it looks like we have a great staff, and we're looking forward to the season ahead. Eight days until the first students arrive!

Where have we all gone?

Well, as Molly said, the Pok-O outdoor ed staff have all disappeared it seems. But nevertheless, camp will not be quiet! Starting on Monday, all the campers will arrive and camp will be bustling again for the next 7 weeks.

Most of the outdoor ed staff you know and love through the blog will not be there however. With one exception!

Brian DeGroat has decided to extend his stay yet again by becoming a summer camp counselor. Brian will be living in the intermediate section, which houses boys ages 10-12 (or thereabouts, I can't remember the exact ages). He will be teaching drama, frisbee, and drama set construction. He is then returning to Pok-O in the fall as Assistant Director. Hooray!

Molly Smyrl has returned to the City of Brotherly Love to continue her work at the Crow's Nest Nature Preserve. She will be helping run the summer day camp there. I'm not sure exactly what she does, but I know she gets really dirty and has lots of fun doing it! Molly will also be returning in the fall as the Community Programs Manager. That means lots of cool things will be happening at Pok-O that everyone should come out and participate in! Hooray!

Liz Pierson has decided to travel the world this summer. She will be traveling to Sint-Truiden, Belgium for 5 weeks to work on an organic farm. This is all happening thanks to the WWOOF Program. That stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. Check them out, it's a really cool organization. Liz will also be returning in the fall as naturalist. Hooray!

Viv.Poit, after spending 10 years in the US has decided to move back to her home country of Brazil. We are all totally jealous and planning trips to go visit her. She leaves July 15, leaving our summer to go back to wintertime! We'll miss you Viv! But have fun! Hooray!

Ginny Tice has gone back to school to finish up her triple major. We had a lot of fun working with Ginny and hope she had a great time as well. I've heard rumors that either Hawaii or the moon (okay, maybe just Hawaii) is next on her agenda. Good luck! Hooray!

Tim Oprazdek (I probably spelled that wrong, I apologize) is back being the director of the Pioneer section of Island Lake Camp in PA. He is in charge of camp craft things as well as the high and low ropes courses, and team building areas. We aren't sure where Tim's next adventures will take him, but we hope if that path leads to the North Country he'll come back and visit! Hooray!

Mike Gast has resumed his position as chef of Pok-O Summer camps. Cooking up some good food, and announcing the rule of the day, hooray!

And then there is Stites...Stites will be working in the office everyday, booking groups and making sure we all have jobs in the fall. Lots of computer work, and lots of phone calls. At least he gets to go outside and mow the lawn for Shai once a week. Good luck Stites! Hooray!

So that's it for us! Leave a comment and tell us what YOU are doing for the summer. Maybe we can share stories when we all reconvene again!

Liz