Mad Lab Fun

For the Mad Lab Returns discovery lab, the theme was Deep Sea and Bioluminescence. I found this awesome fish mask of an anglerfish online and wanted to try it...despite my lack of experience with paper mache. I brought the project to the attention of my ever understanding roommate and the crafting began. Not only did we decide to make the mask, but we made tubeworms out of foam and PVC, we made glow in the dark lanternfish for the "bottom of the ocean" or "dark place" in the lab, and we made anglerfish headbands that the kids could make there at the lab. So basically, our apartment over the weekend was craft central and it was pretty much a mess and non stop the whole time.

Here's a step by step of what we did with the mask and I'll write more later on the other fun things at the lab:

Step 1 - Blow up a balloon bigger than your head. Sit the balloon in a bowl and start paper macheing. We used the 2 cups water to 1 1/2 cup flour mixture (with a little salt to prevent mold) and away we went.

Some of us stayed clean...while others did not. The balloon then had to dry for about 2 full days (yes in the middle of our living room on a huge green tarp. did i mention that amber is very understanding of these education projects?).

Step 2 - Pop the balloon.

Step 3 - Check to see if my big head could fit in there. Carve the bottom bigger so that it can.

Step 3 - Paint the balloon first a coat of black and then a coat of silver. Cut a mouth out.

Step 4 - Add LED stick on press lights for $1 each at dollar tree for eyes.

Step 5 - Add poster board cut teeth to make it scary.

Step 6 - Cut holes for gills b/c it is very claustrophobic in there. Add on pectoral, dorsal, and caudal fins. It would be best to do this with paper mache and paint over that too, but we didn't have time for that so we used duct tape.

Step 7 - Add LED flashlight as lure. We used another creative concept of a green aquarium net with the net part cut off and then the flashlight was pipe cleanered onto the net handle and then the handle was attached through the mask into the inside.

Step 8 - Finished product!

!

Step 9 - Combine with fun halloween socks to wear to the lab!



We had so much fun with this project! And now I can wear it in the Paper Parade here at VIMS on Marine Science Day.

New Website!

VIMS has redone their website. Check it out! I think it looks really nice.


http://www.vims.edu/


They even chose some famous photography for some of the pages - some that Amber or I took. You'll have to refresh some of the main pages to see if you can find Amber's waders picture and her glow in the dark beaker picture; or my pictures of kids seining or Bob's picture of the canoes. It's really cool that they are using some of our education photographs on the VIMS site.

Also, they did a really awesome job with this cool page - even though they spelled her name wrong! Check it out. Hopefully the NERRS page will be next to get redone.

:)

I miss my partner!

So before I write this, I want to preface this by saying that Jes, you should not take this to mean that I am mad at you or anything. I just miss you is all and have been having a sad week doing all these crazy things without you! It's an ode to Jes, my education partner who decided to stay home with her new little one Ellie. Here's a look back at our fun "work" times! I'm sure we'll still have tons of fun times outside of work. :)

We've had a lot of fun field trips.....

And a lot of cute kids that come to visit us.....

Thanks for helping me keep my cool when CRAZY people show up on trips....

And when crazy kids drive us CRAZY and we pout....

We've enjoyed a lot of fun, but dorky marine science stuff....

And some crazy overnight, week-long trips with high school students (gasp).....

Thanks for going to meetings, conferences, and workshops with me and making them fun!....

But mostly just for making me laugh at work and being a member of the crazy education team!.....













The ed team isn't the same without you, Sarge!



Love ya,


Cap'n :)

Fun Field Trips

The past two days have been two really fun field trips - both for very different reasons. Yesterday, I had a group of 7th graders come to VIMS that when I saw them at their school a week prior, were not interested AT ALL in coming on a field trip dealing with marine science. They didn't want to get in the water, didn't want to hold any animals, etc. etc. But I pumped them up as much as I could at school, and convinced them all that they wouldn't want to miss it - and they all came!! But when they got to VIMS, 1/2 of the class still wasn't planning on coming into the water! I mean I KNEW what was going to happen - they'd get down to the water, see their friends in the water having fun, and want to get in themselves. And what happened? That exactly. So not only did one girl face her extreme fears of going in the water, but she had a great time and I even ended up with a hug at the end of the trip. But

my favorite moment was with one of the boys that was too cool for school at first, didn't want to hurt his image by being into the marine science trip, but after 5 minutes at VIMS he was hooked. The microscopes, the tanks, the animals, the nets, he couldn't get enough. It was just very rewarding!

Then today, another fun trip but not for the same reason. Today, we caught ALL of the fun things that we usually don't see that often. Some of them we catch every once in a while, or we'll catch one of these things, but usually not ALL of them on the same trip. It was crazy - every 5 minutes another scream as the kids found something exciting.

We caught, four - count 'em FOUR - seahorses (one of which was a baby and the rest were HUGE), a puffer (my favorite), a giant flounder, 10 or so HUGE blue crabs, and wait for it....a Broad clawed hermit crab. Which may not sound exciting to you, but it is something I've NEVER seen down here. It was at least 3.5-4" big and in a huge whelk shell! And the teacher found it just sitting on the intake pipe for the seawater lab. On the pipe! It was crazy. She was super excited to catch it b/c she knew it was a find! So exciting times the past few field trips. :)

I could be a spokesperson for pumpkins!

Today we had an adventurous Saturday. We met the Russo's and took the ferry from Jamestown to Surry across the James River. We traveled to College Run Farms, where you can pick your own pumpkins - something I don't ever remember doing! It was great. Ellie even looked the part in her little pumpkin onesie! We got a map of the farm, and each row had a different kind of pumpkin to choose from. Who knew there were that many? Amber and I decided on a One Too Many (looks like orange lace over a white pumpkin) and a Jaredale (muted colored orange and green one) for the apartment, some mini pumpkins for the dining room table, and a small orange one to go outside the front door too. Then, I got two pumpkins for the Mad Lab coming up at work - one Lumina (all white) and one that looks like dark clouds on a smaller white pumpkin. Very unusual looking but cool. I'll have to post pictures of the ones that we bought later. After picking lots of pumpkins and enjoying lots of Ellie time, we came back on the ferry and enjoyed lunch with the Russo's. The pumpkins looks really cute in the house, and I can't wait to see how the white ones look for the lab. We had such a fun time exploring the other side of the river and picking pumpkins. A great way to spend a Saturday! We definitely want to go back and explore Surry some more, and also go back to the farm in the spring for strawberry picking! :)

I've Been Too Busy to Tell People How Busy I Am

Hahahhahahaha. That's from one of my favorite someecards (see Andrea's blog for more information on the site). So I haven't written anything on my blog in exactly a month - whew it's been a busy one. The past month has been filled with a lot of time at work, lots of field trips, more work, Estuaries Day, work, more field trips, work, more teaching, more work and a visit home. Did I mention I worked a lot?!? :)

Estuaries Day was a bust! It's one of our biggest events of the year, every year I try really hard to advertise and get volunteers, and make t-shirts, etc but it's just not worth it. So this year, I didn't really do that much and it was about the same as before. So at least I didn't waste time, right? One cool thing that happened that day was that one of the people attending the event brought some milkweed leaves from their yard that had Monarch Butterfly chysallises (spelling?) on them. So we kept them on display waiting to see if one of the butterflies would come out, and it did! It was really awesome to see.

The weekend after Estuaries Day I was able to go home (and take off a few days, yay!) for my mom and jimmy's birthdays. It was great to go home and visit my parents and grandparents. Friday, I went with my mom to her golf practice. She's amazing, everything that's going on and then on top of that coaching the golf team too! The girls on her team though reminded me how old I'm getting. They aren't graduating until 2010...ten YEARS younger than me! Saturday, my mom, grandmother and I went to my dad's new gallery show for the woodcarvings he's done. They were great! The fish on the right belongs to Jimmy, but the one with the dark wood and light colored fish is the one that I definitely would love to have someday, hint hint Dad! It didn't come out that clear in the pictures but it was awesome. Another really great piece is the giant bird that my Dad worked on with some of the other carvers. It's huge! The show was really great. Here are some more pictures. If you're interested in supporting my dad's carving, vote for him in the santa contest here http://www.woodcarvingillustrated.com/phpQ/fillsurvey.php?sid=10 - his are number 23-26! You have to vote by October 19th!

After going to visit the show, my mom and I did some shopping and then went out to dinner with the fam for her birthday. Sunday we went to church and breakfast and hung out at the house planning some things for our big trip to CA which is at the end of this month! I can't wait. :)

Oh! And my picture was chosen for the cover of the VIMS course catalog this year! Not my personal picture, but a picture that I took. So that's exciting. :) Check it out - http://www.vims.edu/sms/catalog/catalog0809/catalog_2008to2009.pdf. Even got a credit on the second page. Those are some kids from the Governor's School seining at sunset on one of our reserve sites, Goodwin Islands.

This week has been super crazy - teaching every day and getting up at the crack of dawn, but it's over now and it's the weekend so I can relax. :) And tomorrow is ferry ride and pumpkins - so check out the blog later this weekend for that.