Last Day

On my last day of senior project I went through the normal routines. When I got there, I was sent to the Raptor Center to clean the bird cages. After doing that, I enriched them, by putting in newspaper balls that were either scented with peppermint, almond, or banana extract. Most of the birds were too focused on their food to acknowledge them, however Vinnie, our Turkey Vulture, did attempt to shred and eat it as if it was part of his meal. I guess he likes the smell of banana extract! After that, I returned to the animal center to clean some dishes and sweep and mop.  Once that was over it was basically lunch time! After lunch we finished up most of the chores and pretty much everything was done! So another senior project girl and I took out some popsicles that we had made a few days earlier. We gave two fish-ickles to the otters, Lucy and Linus. They got a HUGE kick out of them. They would roll around in the water trying to grab the fish out. After about 10 minutes of that the ice had melted enough that a fish was sticking out. So they grabbed the fish and dragged it out of the water so they could munch on them. It was about the cutest thing ever, so upset I didn't have a camera! We then gave some fruit-sickles to Scarlet, our red fox, the deer and the crows. Then for the last half hour of my last day, I sat and cuddled with Dora, our Virginia Opossum. It was a very nice last day!

Finishing up the Presentation

Over the last few days, I have been concentrating on finishing up my planetarium presentation on the International Space Station. Admittedly, this has been quite a bit harder than I thought it would be, mainly in coming up with a topic that I could condense into a fifteen-minute presentation appropriate for kids. It has been rewarding, though; along the way, I've learned a lot about previous space stations (namely, Skylab and Mir) as well as the research being conducted on the ISS. (A lot of it sounds really cool: for example, they've recently developed a sort of plasma germ-zapper that harms drug-resistant germs but has little effect on humans.) Hopefully, I'll  be able to assemble and code the show today; if not, I may have to come back later to finish the show.
On a separate note, we finished the slides last week. All in all, we ended up filling about two file cabinet drawers of slide sheets, as well as a foot-tall stack of miscellaneous junk slides that will probably get tossed. Curiously and coincidentally, we also found a set of slides marked "Bear Tales" that we were able to use in the identically-named show that Destiny and I had crafted at the beginning of the project.

Walking the birds

Today I got to walk birds around Perkins! This means that I have a bird sitting on my gloved hand and I take them around Perkins so that he can get enriched and become more comfortable around people.  This was the first time that I was allowed to take a bird out of their home and it was so exciting! First I walked Radar our Barn Owl. He was extremely calm and only freaked out once (freaking out entails the bird flying off your hand in an attempt to get away). Then I walked Omega our Screech Owl. Omega weighs only .14 kg which is about 1/3 of a pound. Omega loves to get little gentle noogies on her head. It is the cutest thing because she'll close her huge eyes and give the face that says "this feels good." After I walked Omega I took out Tamarack, our Great Horned Owl. After walking Omega, the whole 3 pounds that Tamarack weighs was heavy. Having her on my hand turned out to be a forearm workout! It was a very exciting day and I was so glad I was able to do so before my project ends!

Next step

At some point during this week, we will receive the shipment of stones that will be used for the bases of the front pillars on the pavilion. This job, while purely asthetic, will truly finalize the process of building the pavilion. The next step after this will be to figure out how and where a compostable restroom will be placed, needless to say i have very little insight into this subject but am keen to learn, just as i did with the pavilion, what goes into the entire planning, implicating, and finalizing of this project.

Back to the Base-ics

Progress continues at the farm. This weekend we received the necessary bricks to begin working on the floor of the pavilion. Beginning a bit on monday and finishing up today, we were able to complete the floor. The interesting thing about this process was that we did not have to install any draining systems into it. The contractor, Dwayne, intentionally purchased what are called "semi-permeable" bricks, meaning they do the job of a drain without the complex draining apparatus. The way it works, he described, is that the water is able to seep through the gaps in between each brick, and then down into the layer of sand and dirt that we had previously laid down. In this way, even if water gets into the pavilion, it will drain evenly throughout the structure without the need for drains or piping underneath the floor itself. It looks great and the structure is really getting close!

Grants and Ice Cream

Because of the rain I was not able to take pictures of the target area for the grant today as planned.  But, there is never a shortage of things to get done with three grants coming due.  On Friday, the letters from business owners about their interest in receiving funds are due.  We are currently working on a plan of action to reach out to all owners to make sure they do not have any questions pertaining to the grants. However, what might be more interesting for a blog post is our new ice cream shop Scoops! Scoops opened this Saturday in the harbor across from my project advisor’s business.  They serve hard served ice cream from a company not far from us called Marcie’s, in Meadville PA.   I am pleased that an ice store has opened, as it is something I felt the harbor had been missing for a long time.  I had even thought about opening a shop myself.   In addition to the benefits of having tasty ice cream close, a new business means jobs.  In particular, jobs for young people like me.  Because I have been in the harbor so much lately for my project, I happened to meet the owner of Scoops.  Thanks to my networking, she hired me for the summer.  Scoops is just one new business that is suppose to open this season in the harbor.  We are also looking forward to two new restaurants as well.  If you ask me, the LBCA is doing a lot of things right.  I have never see the harbor as booming as it has been recently.    

Tower City

Over the past few weeks, the staff members have tried to schedule a visit to Tower City, so we could visit a new nest of Peregrine Falcons. However, it kept being cancelled up until last Wednesday. So, we (staff and senior project members) piled into a van with Harvey Webster, the head of Perkins. We drove off to Tower City to visit the two new baby falcons sitting up on a 12th floor ledge. There is quite a bit of history that goes behind that ledge however I'll just give an overview. Back in the 90's, Peregrine falcons were declining in number. It was at first unclear why. It was found that the number of adult falcons was the same however the number of eggs that successful hatched had decreased dramatically. After quite a bit of research it was found that pesticides (I forget the exact kind) that were supposedly un-harmful to all animals and only killed insects were affecting the shell thickness of falcon eggs. After the climax of the pesticide use had passed, a crew of falcon lovers in the Cleveland area, including Harvey Webster, started to scout out locations for nests to be placed so that falcons could lay their eggs unharmed. One of the very popular locations was on the 12th floor window ledge of Tower City. This ledge has been used every year since then for falcons to lay their eggs in peace. Last week, we visited that site where a couple of falcons, SJ and Boomer, had laid 4 eggs. Unfortunately 2 eggs did not hatch, however the 2 that did are doing wonderful. In the picture below you can see that they are losing their baby fuzz and are starting to grow in their mature feathers. Once the mature feathers come in they can start learning to fly and such but until then, they are trapped on that ledge. The father, Boomer continuously flew around us and stood right outside the window where we were looking out, protecting his youngsters. The mother perched directly above her babies and did not move the entire time, but did make quite a bit of noise to try and get us to leave. 

Just Pockets

    

The past few days I have simply been sewing pockets. I’m able to use the sample squares of fabric from JoAnn Fabrics that are a lot less expensive than buying at least a yard of fabric, and I can have more variety. Just making pockets has minimized the projected cost by a lot, not only because I’m not buying more shorts currently to test, and in the future I won’t need to buy shorts material. Also, the packaging for the pockets won’t be too bad, if anything it will simply be in a plastic bag with a cardboard label to keep it shut. I’ve also been thinking about different ways to get the pockets out without being too pricey. I have been looking up summer craft fairs and art shows where I could hopefully try to sell the shorts but mainly just sell the pockets.

Simplicity

   After meeting with David, I switched my focus from creating shorts to just creating a pocket. The thought process behind the decision was that I want to create something as simple as possible. Obviously things have become much more simple as I’ve gone along. The case was the most complex, dealing with plastics, creating a mold, and actually making my own design. The shorts were a lot easier, because I was able to buy shorts and just create a pocket but they cost more than I wanted. Now that I’m just creating a pocket, there is very little cost involved, if anything the pins and clasps make up most of the cost. David even suggested that I could sell the pockets in packages of three or so, that way people have more than one design to choose from. Yesterday I spent the day creating more pockets and then I went to JoAnn Fabrics to find a type of pin I could use so people can attach their pocket wherever they want. I have push back pins as well as normal pins. I think that creating just a pocket is the best way to go because then people won’t need to pay for the shorts as well, and because people won’t be limited to putting their pocket on shorts, maybe they’ll want to put it inside a purse or backpack or wherever!

Networking

The highlight of yesterday took place in the evening.  Each year my mentor holds two parties at his store, both open to the public.  Yesterday night I was the hostess and greeted people as they arrived.  This job was important for me because I met many new people from the community.  I was able to speak to members of the Lift Bridge Community Association as well as talk to people about the grants we are applying for.  It was interesting to see many of the people I have been helping cross paths i.e. people from the garage sale bonanza and people from LBCA.  This is possible because of the small town that we live in.  However, when talking to people last night, it was evident that we are not all small-minded.  The connections I have made during my project, and strengthened last night, will be important as I continue to work for LBCA this summer and remain an active citizen.  The evening was really a lot of fun.  On a side note, I did once again notice that the vast majority of guests at the party seemed to be of an older generation (like the age of my grandparents).  How can we jump-start the young in the community?  The answer may be coming soon… teaser for my next blog; ice cream shop! 

Just Another Day

Overall, today was pretty chill. After setting up the dominoes around the Foucault pendulum, I sat in on a school group show (on the solar system) which happened to include a couple of observers from the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. (CMSD has a program, called Inspire, where every second grader in the district visits the museum; the planetarium has an opportunity to become part of that program – which would boost attendance and provide some funding.) Afterwards, I did some more work on my final presentation, sketching out a storyboard and looking up photographs from NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). The project is coming along rather nicely, although I’ll have to do some work over the weekend to make sure that I have enough time to learn how to program the presentation into the planetarium before the project is over. Now that I have a definite outline down, though, and a definite topic, work should go much smoother. Anyway, to conclude the day, my fellow volunteers and I returned to the plants in the lobby, wiping them down with wet rags to remove a gray film that collects on the leaves.

Lantern Research

Now that I have finished the shorts and they are starting to be tested by friends, I finally went to David’s office. I was showing him pictures of the shorts I made when he made the comment that he already had running shorts he was happy with, and that he wouldn’t want to buy another pair of expensive shorts. From that comment we had a new idea: just selling a pocket. The pocket would be the same size as the ones I put on the shorts, and there would be a device to connect the pocket to the shorts. I was thinking a way to connect the two would be to use pins at all four corners, and David recommended having an adhesive that could be ironed on to the shorts. The difference would obviously be that a pin could be removed but the adhesive would stay permanently.

For the second part of the day I helped David with customer segmenting and researching different lanterns for his new product, an LED lantern. I went on Amazon.com and reviewed the top selling lanterns similar to his, to find how many lumens each light produced and how much the lanterns cost. After plotting this on a graph, you could see a line where the fairly priced lanterns were, as well as which lanterns were good deals and which ones were poor deals. I learned that even though it took over an hour just to look at 8 different products, a lot of information was gained. I was able to figure out how everyone else was marketing the products as well as what people actually want in a lantern. For all of the awesome feedback and help David has given me, the least I could do was help out with some research.

Just Another Day

So far, this week has been pretty ordinary, my days filled with intern-y tasks around the museum, ranging from interesting to banal. Yesterday we had to wash and prune some large plants (mainly ficus) around the museum, carting them downstairs into the employee parking lot and washing them with a hose. Afterwards, we continued work on the slides, making a lot of progress – I think we’re almost done with them. Additionally, we’ve started to do a little more with the planetarium itself, making programs (specifically, one on comets) and gathering information for presentations, such as what constellations we can see from Cleveland throughout the year, as well as how far away you would have to hold a quarter for it to cover one arcsecond of the sky (the answer is 19.5 miles, by the way). Although this latter stuff has been kind of boring, it’s also been kind of fun to tackle new and interesting math problems with immediate real-world applications. Looking into the future, I probably will be begin working more on my final project, with the slides almost completed and most of the other volunteers ending their projects on Friday.

Class Time

Today me and the other senior project students sat in on an animal class. The museum offers classes for school field trips where they can learn and interact with the live animals in Perkins and the Animal Center. The staff members thought it would be fun for the the senior project-ers to sit in and watch Harvey Webster, the head honcho in Perkins teach the class. There were two school classes there; one from Newbury Elementary and one from an inner city school. Both classes were in 2nd grade. Obviously, one of the major problems with teaching little kids is that they can't focus for very long. However, Harvey knew how to handle them. The first animal he used was Rocky, a painted turtle. After explaining how he lived and stuff, he quickly took out Shelby, our Eastern Box Turtle, shifting their attention to a new and exciting animal before they could get bored. Then he proceeded to show the kids Dixie the opossum, Lilac the skunk, Meep the Red-Tail Hawk, and Onyx the Black Rat Snake. The class was very educational, even for us! We learned quite a bit about how these animals lived and how they came to live in our museum. It was exciting seeing Meep, a hawk that actually HATES females interact the students. When she was younger she was raised by only females and so she imprinted on them. As she grew up, her imprinting actually made her want to attack females (her way of showing affection we assume). However, now we (females) cannot go anywhere near her cage. So, seeing her sitting on Harvey's arm all regal and calm was very cool. It was a very educational and fun morning!

Major Improvements

Today I worked in the Ashtabula City Community Development office.  The City is applying for three different grants, all of which will help the Ashtabula Harbor.  This morning I spent time organizing the paper work for each grant and going over checklists to see what still needs to be collected.  It is important to fill out each application correctly or else the proposals will be disqualified.  While it was not super exciting work, I was able to give the project administrator, Mary Church, time to work on more crucial things.  My reward for a morning of paperwork was getting to do a sight visit at a local beach where they are doing improvement work on a public pavilion and snack bar.  This beach is just down the hill from the harbor and will be key to attracting people to the area.  I had not been to the pavilion for about two years because it was previously so run down.  It was exciting to see the place freshened up with new paint, power washed flowers, and renovated bathrooms.  Working in the Community Development Office made me feel good about the Harbor’s future.  Ashtabula is so often called incompetent or too poor to make improvements.  But, this spring, Mary is juggling four major projects that will all have a significant impact on our target area.  While things may be slow to get started, with the help of Mary and other community leaders, the ball for improvement finally seems to be moving fast.  

Deer pond

Today's post is devoted entirely to my adventure of cleaning the deer pond. In Perkins, we have three deer, Artemis, Ginny, and Baby. Along with them is a wild turkey, Jake. The deer are currently shedding their winter coats which means the ground has a thin layer of hair. Part of the daily chores is to pick up all of the poop, leftover food and give them fresh veggies/fruits. Today however we decided to clean out the deer pond. The pond is at the front of the exhibit,separating the visitors from reaching in and touching the deer. The water should be clear, however it was actually a dark greenish brown color. So it was time to drain, scrub, and refill. Once we got rid of all the water, we mucked out all of the smelly debris that was on the bottom. The second part of the job was to bucket out water from the three water filters. This is by far the worst job because of the awful smell. However everyone survived and it as time to refill. It turns out our hose had a lot of little holes so it took awhile for it to refill, but once it was finished the water was a nice clear color. And on a side note, the whole time we were cleaning, Artemis chilled in the empty pond with us, licking a dirty pipe clean. He even stayed in as we filled the pond back up to his belly. What a hot and exhausting day.

Linsday the Loggerhead Shrike

Sad news at the Perkins Wildlife Center today. Lindsay, our Loggerhead Shrike passed away this morning. Yesterday she was doing fine, enjoying her wax worms like any normal day. However early morning today, when a staff member came in to work, Lindsay was sitting on the ground. This is a key sign.. Whenever a bird is on the ground it indicates that something is wrong. Lindsay was immediately taken to the vets office. Later in the morning we got the call that Lindsay had passed away. The cause of death is unknown and a necropsy will be performed for further details on her death. Lindsay came to the museum when she was a baby (some 12 years ago) because she had a malformed beak. Her beak is critical to survival because it is how she catches her insects. So she was brought to the museum where she lived for over 10 years. It was a sad morning for all the staff members as she would always greet you when you walked in the door, as well as beg for food at her cage door throughout the day. While her shriek was rather loud, it is now missed very much.

Now the Floor

At the farm, where i continue to spend much of my time, we are beginning this week on the flooring. Today we should be receiving a shipment of base bricks to lay down. This will hopefully be the final large step in the construction of the Pavilion at the farm. With the roof and eventually the floor complete, all we will have left to do on the pavilion will be the ascetic features. These include varnishing the wood, building up stone pillars around the already in place wood ones, designing and working on landscaping around the structure and probably more that he hasn't yet told us about. My brother and I are hoping to work on the barn that stands only a few hundred feet from the pavilion. It needs to be cleaned, repaired, and landscaped, but it seems like a fun job and a chance to take on a project completely on our own!

Letters upon Letters

Over the past few days I have been working on finalizing the invite list for the June 13th event and getting the invitations out. I am responsible, therefore, in coordinating who the addresses came from (in the committee) and where they will ultimately go (writing the addresses). WHat i thought would be a quick day of writing addresses on enveloped turned out to spill over into today, as we compiled a list of more than fifty invitees. One problem that I ran across as well, was the return address. I knew I would eventually have to write down my address all those times, which seemed like a hassle more than anything. So I did some investigation and found an embosser at my house with the address, undoubtedly making my process much easier and the return addresses looking much more official.

Sunspots

One of the most important things that we volunteers did this week was learn how to record sunspots at the Mueller Observatory. Every day, when possible, the astronomy department (i.e. Mr. Simpson) records the day’s solar activity, noting sunspots and pores. At the end of the month, Mr. Simpson submits the data to a national database of professional and amateur astronomers, who compile it all to produce an average of each day’s sunspots, creating a measure of solar activity. Although rather mundane, this task is probably one of the museum’s most important – as Mr. Simpson put it, it “contributes to science.”

Thus, on Wednesday, my fellow volunteers and I spent the afternoon learning how to record and analyze sunspots. After lining up and focusing the telescope, we helped Mr. Simpson adjust the data sheet on the projection board to line it up with the sun’s east-west movement. From there, we began to actually count the sunspots, noting the size, number, and distribution of spots in a group. (We even spotted one really large group that probably morphed into the recent solar flare depicted here.) From there, we sketched the spots, recorded the cloudiness and “seeing” (i.e. quality of the air, considering heat distortion, etc.) and called it a day.

Recording sunspot data

Change in Tactics

Finally, work is getting done on my final presentation. Last Friday, I decided to change my topic: I am now going to create a presentation on space stations, focusing on the International Space Station. I decided to switch mainly because my previous topic, of how space research has helped us understand the Earth, was a little too vague – I couldn’t really find anything specific enough to be crafted in to a fifteen minute presentation. My new topic, though, should be more doable and interesting. I plan to start out with a discussion of space stations of the past, ranging from preliminary ideas to Skylab and Mir; from there, I will talk about the construction of the ISS, its current uses, and its future. From here on out, I’ll have to find pictures and animations via the NASA and ESA websites to use in my presentation. From there, I’ll actually program the presentation and make note cards.

On a completely separate note, here’s a picture of that globe that I dusted about two weeks ago (I finally got around to uploading it from my camera).

The girl in blue is Destiny, one of the other volunteers, and the man in blue is Clyde Simpson, the observatory coordinator.

Boring Skies

Last Thursday was, unfortunately, an incredibly boring day. For the entire morning, my fellow volunteers and I sat in on a presentation on the geology of Stebbin’s Gulch in Holden Arboretum. Yes, this is completely unrelated to astronomy – we were only there because Mr. Simpson, the observatory coordinator, is a member of NOGS (Northern Ohio Geological Society) and invited all the astronomy volunteers to sit in on the presentation. Although amazingly soporific (I tried to stay awake – I really did – but the CMNH library is always so stuffy…), sitting in on Thursday’s presentation did give me a glimpse of what I have to look forward to as a scientist – i.e., increased specialization in a field, not endless boring meetings (although I’m sure I’ll have to sit through those too). Hopefully I’ll be able to find something that interests me.

The rest of the day was rather uneventful; in the afternoon, we simply continued with sorting the slides. We’re finally starting to get a good organization system down for the slides – we now have tabs in a file cabinet with different categories for each set of slides. All in all, although a boring day, Thursday was rather productive, at least in terms of the slides.

Sewing Day 2

Yesterday I was able to finish up the shorts. I plan on asking girls on the lacrosse team to wear them when they exercise or during their free time to get their opinions on the designs. Nothing very exciting has happened the past few days because I have only been sewing. Next week I’m hoping to work at David’s office because I am not completely sure what the next step is. I’m assuming that I will get to help him with his work, because once I get the shorts to the lacrosse girls I want them to be able to keep them for a few days, and during that time there will not be much for me to do. I will be able to help David in his office, seeing what steps he is currently taking to make sure his business is successful.  

Sewing

My room has been taken over by fabric, shorts, and design paper. You would think that sewing a pocket onto a pair of shorts would be extremely simple, but instead I was faced with many challenges. First of all, the first pocket I made, I decided to hand sew because I figured it would be easier to really feel and work with the fabric the first time. I was wrong. Yesterday I spent a good half hour simply trying to figure out how the pockets on the inside of athletic shorts are made. I tried making them out of paper, simply pinning the fabric to mock the design but I couldn’t get it right. It’s also difficult to make a pocket with the material I am using because it is very stretchy to match the fabric of the shorts. After spending over an hour trying to figure out what I was doing wrong, I decided to go a different route. I chose to not mimic the pockets in the original shorts, but to create my own pattern. Yesterday I put pockets into three of the shorts and was able to finish the rest today. 

Community Development Meeting

No garage sale for me today.  Instead, I started the morning with my long awaited meeting at city hall.  I met with the head of community development for Ashtabula city as well as members from the Lift Bridge Community Association to make a plan to complete three different grants that will improve The Ashtabula Harbor.  Even though I was new to what they were discussing, my previous research from day’s prior helped me follow along pretty well.  One thing that was especially unfamiliar was many of the City and State government codes and requirements.  While there is a lot of bureaucracy involved, some of the complications seemed necessary in order to allow all applicants a fair shot at the available funds.  My job in the next coming weeks (I will be working on this even after project ends) is to speak to harbor business owners about improvements they wish to make on their buildings.  This way, when the grant is submitted, we can demonstrate our community’s need.  In addition, next week I will be working at the community development office of the city to help them gather the information they need for the grant applications.   I really enjoyed the meeting because the group respected me even though I am young and new to their project.  They were eager to give me key role and were very enthusiastic when I volunteered to help them at the office, something more than they had originally planned for me.  If the grants go through, the harbor will be able to make improvements that I would have never imagined possible.  I really want to assist this group in any way I can. Their vision and drive to make the community a better place is impressive.

This afternoon I went down to the harbor to help plant their hanging flower baskets as well as clean the street.  After that work was done I checked in at my mentor’s shop and filled him in on this morning’s meeting which he was unable to attend.