Taking Advice from a Caterpillar

TAKING ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR

Our LA Earthwatch Institute team would make Lewis Carroll proud. August 1st marks our final day at the Southwestern Research Center in Portal, Arizona. BUT it also marks the start of the second leg of our journey.

What truly has defined my trip so far is how I do not want to leave! I've been able to develop my caterpillar catching skills among the 5,000ft+ elevation of the desert/deciduous forest ecosystems here. Although I have only caught 13 caterpillars and that was truly just the result of applying what I saw modeled by Danny and my team mates, I have made it my ambiguous goal to collect at minimum 24 caterpillars as a dedication to my middle school email account name: caterpillar24. I think I always knew the caterpillar and its life cycle was an analogy for what is more to come, rather than being "butterflygrl24" on the Mariah Carey fan wagon because that would be the end of my journey.

And the best part must really be knowing that my entire team is also feeling a similar way about leaving SWRC. Below are images of my team mates embracing the methods of using beat sheets to collect specimens. No trees were severely damaged in the making of the most recent collection of caterpillars for Danny.

 

Now what I love best about all of this is how it seals why I don't feel sympathetic towards placing my students in project and problem based activities where they must participate in the procedures and collection of data to synthesize their science learning. I don't think we really forget to be kids- but then again I was a pretty old soul for a child. But if you can get full grown adults from various academic focuses to brave the heat, spiders, false alarms and monsoons then there is already an insight to what may work in engaging students in the science classroom.

Fears have definitely overcomed after handling various insects of enormous sizes in the name of science education- for this LA teacher at least.

Extra credit: Can you spot the whipping tail scorpion on Tanner below?