For this week of my internship, I have been focusing primarily on my second continuation activity, which is concentrated on learning about solar energy. After researching various solar activities, I came across one focusing on the sun as the source of all energy and how it transmits energy to other sources. I felt that this would be a good activity to educate grade school children about energy and the many forms it takes. In addition, I included a simple continuation experiment for children to try at home to better-understand solar energy.

What are Sunbeams?

Objective: To understand the primary source of energy is the sun. To examine how energy from the sun changes and takes many forms; to understand how these forms come to us.

Background: Energy gives us the ability to perform actions such as running, playing sports, and even thinking. This is because energy is stored in our body in our muscles and brain cells. Energy allows things, and people, to move and do work and it exists in many forms, like energy that is used to light a streetlamp, cool buildings during warmer months, and cook our favorite foods.

The sun is the source of all energy, but energy can be stored in many things such as natural gas, food, coal, water, and wind. Energy does not have a shape and therefore we cannot hold it in our hands; however, energy can be changed from one form to another. When gasoline is burned in a car, the energy in gasoline is converted to heat energy. When we stand outside in the sun, light energy is changed into heat as well.

Materials:

• Paper (yellow construction paper to cut out the sun and sunbeams; OR regular paper for children to draw their own sun)
• Markers or crayons to label sunbeams
• Optional: Scissors, glue (to attach sunbeams if you choose not to draw a sun)

Procedure:

1. Draw or cut out a picture of the center of the sun (a circle); label the circle ‘Energy’ and think about what kinds of energy we get from the sun.
2. Make a list of all examples of energy you can come up with; the objective is to help children understand that the sun is the primary source for many different things (food, wood, oil, gas, coal, light, heat, plants, etc.) Provide a helpful explanation for less obvious examples.
3. Draw or cut out several sunbeams (rectangles/strips of paper) and write an energy word from the previous list on each beam. Attach sunbeams to circle if necessary.
4. Have children share their sun with each other; look for similarities or unique examples of energy. Ask children how their energy examples would be different if we had no sun, two suns, or a sun that was closer/further away.

Further Learning Experiment:

Melting Ice

Objective: To provide additional understanding of how solar energy works.

Procedure:

1. Place ice cubes outside in your backyard on a sunny day. Place one cube directly in the sun and place another cube in full shade.
2. Ask children which ice cube they think will melt faster.
3. As the cube in the sun turns into a puddle first, explain that the heat energy from the sun made it melt faster (The light energy from the direct sunlight turns into heat energy, warming the ice cube and melting it more quickly).

The past 2 weeks I attempted to visit Stratford for another program shadowing experience. However, due to unpredictable weather and other extenuating circumstances, I was unable to shadow April and I am now planning on returning next week. With that being said, the past two weeks I have focused on developing the backyard pollinator habitat activity April and I discussed. I will be formatting the activity guidelines and information below into one of Stratford’s Field Trip Activity sheets before submitting the project.

Creating a Backyard Pollinator Habitat

Objective: To provide nectar and larval host plant sources to native pollinator species. Observe how the presence of specific organisms changes in your backyard after your pollinator garden begins to grow.

Background: We often think of conservation efforts as contributing to a larger-scale phenomenon, such as switching to a more sustainable lifestyle or donating to various conservation organizations. However, we can take conservation initiatives in our own backyards! By simply creating a small strip of native plants in your backyard instead of mowing it over you can ensure that your native pollinators have healthy food, a place to nest, and a livable habitat.

Where Should I Create My Garden?

Your pollinator garden should be in the sunniest spot possible. Pollinating insects need to be warm to be active, so ensuring that your garden is in a sunny location will help them warm up even when temperatures begin to cool.

What Should be in My Garden?

A general pollinator garden should have brightly colored native flowering plants. There are many native wildflowers to choose from, but some examples of Ohio wildflowers are: Common Milkweed, Blue-Eyed Grass, Butterflyweed, Purple Coneflower and Gray-Headed Coneflower. If you are hoping to attract a specific species, like the Monarch Butterfly, for example, make sure to also plant the larval host plant for that species. It is also important that your garden blooms from early summer through the fall season in order to provide a constant source of nectar for your pollinators, so be sure to choose wildflowers that bloom at various times. And remember to make sure that the plants you choose are all native plant species!

This week for my semester internship with Stratford, I have focused on developing activity ideas for my final project- the two continuation learning activities. April also contacted me this week with an exciting update: the Environmental Education staff at Stratford met with a non-profit organization who created the “Green Machine”, a portable solar education display that can be used for outreach and onsite programs, and she hopes to incorporate the solar activity I develop for my internship with this new educational tool they have added to their center.

The Green Machine is essentially a simplified solar kit geared specifically toward K-12 learning and variations of this machine have been in the works for approximately 10-20 years. This newest model of the Green Energy Machine includes real-time data collection and in addition, the Green Machine is a fully functioning solar generator that can be used during events, outdoor programs, class sessions, etc.

This upcoming week I plan to visit Stratford to learn more about the Green Machine and the potential activities I could help generate to go along with it. Here is the one-page information flyer April passed along regarding the Green Machine and its purpose:

The Green Energy Machine — One Pager — Summer 2020

My recent focus for this internship has been diving into the origin of environmental education and how it has transformed throughout history. The importance behind this focus area of my internship is to fully understand the initial purpose of environmental education and what it has looked like historically, so that I can better understand how it needs to continue to progress in order to meet modern and future education goals. Interestingly, the idea of environmental education dates further back than one may expect.

The original emergence of the idea of environmental education can be traced back as early as the 18^th century. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a Genevan philosopher, was the first to suggest the importance of education focused on the environment in Emile: or, On Education (Stanford 2010). Similarly, there was another famous scholar who had a crucial impact on the start of environmental education. Philosopher Louis Agassiz, a Swiss-born naturalist, mimicked Rousseau’s sentiments a century later and encouraged his students to study the natural world rather than books (Berkeley 1996). Agassiz was a known biologist and geologist of his time, and his philosophical views centered around a scientific perspective.

For the first week of my internship I visited Stratford Ecological Center to observe the Wednesday morning Farm School program. The Farm School Program is a new program at Stratford, and it was developed to accommodate the COVID-19 pandemic and current restrictions. Farm School is solely an outdoor, full-day program for grade-level students that focuses on helping children learn from and experience nature. April Hoy, the lead environmental educator at Stratford, led the program which focused on learning about the basic jobs and tasks of working on the farm as well as tending gardens and exploring native habitats. The program began by discussing the biotic and abiotic factors of a farm ecosystem and how they are important to one another. After learning about the ecosystem, we examined the animals on the farm and checked off daily farm tasks that ensure the needs of the animals are being met. The morning portion of Farm School touched on other topics as well, like what native pollinators are and how we can support them.

Photo taken during Farm School Program in the orchard going to feed baby goats at Stratford Ecological Center.

This past week, April and I discussed further details for my final project. My initial project focus was too broad in focus and the primary purpose of our meeting this week was to narrow my focus to something more specific and manageable for the amount of time I will be on campus this semester. As a result, my condensed project focus is to develop hands-on outdoor continuation activities that children can do at home. These activities will be related to topics mentioned during Farm School or at similar programs and these activities will provide additional hands-on learning opportunities for children after the time of the program. The idea behind this project was also to find more ways in which Stratford can continue their mission during the unprecedented times of the pandemic. The activity topics I will be focusing on are backyard habitats for native pollinators and a solar-related activity. These topics are things April already touches on during her program but not topics that she has the opportunity to cover in-depth. These activities will also try to cover a deeper STEM-based curriculum as this is an ongoing goal for environmental education at Stratford.

Over the course of the Fall 2020 semester, I will be participating in an internship with the Environmental Education staff at Stratford Ecological Center.

For this internship, I will be focusing on assisting with environmental education and curriculum development at Stratford Ecological Center. Over the course of the semester, I will plan visits to Stratford to observe the current programming events (mainly on Wednesday mornings) and discuss ideas for new curriculum focuses and activities with the education staff. I will be doing research independently to learn more about the history of environmental education and how it has changed over the years. I will be focusing on how Stratford can implement a more in-depth STEM focus using additional activities and continuation lessons that can be done at home (due to the current Pandemic). In addition, I plan to focus on how I could help Stratford in implementing new curriculum ideas while also addressing current societal issues (further incorporating diversity and inclusion of various backgrounds into programming). By the end of the semester I will submit a project summary complete with new curriculum ideas for Stratford and a reflection of this internship discussing my overall progress towards achieving these goals.