Evie Oglesby's Blog

Dreyland:

For my may project I was lucky enough to be able to return to Dreyland one last time as a Bio-Dreyland counselor. The First day we got into buses and traveled to the camp, once we arrived we unloaded the vans and met at the gravel bar to receive cabin and group assignments. After we put all of our stuff into the cabin we ate lunch before our first session. My group, group C, started in the forest, where we split up into three sub-groups and looked at trees in different parts of the transect line. The group I was in looked at the lowest intervals, A-B, B-C, and C-D, otherwise known as the riparian zone. We measured the dbh of trees and then identified them. After forest we had stream, in the first stream session we caught and marked crawfish and did chemical tests on the water. When we had finished our sessions we had cookout the first night. At cookout the seniors, Sam, Whitney, Safi and me, were in charge of making the fire, and coming up with games for the freshmen to play. When we got there it seemed like none of the freshmen were going to help gather wood, which made our job a lot harder, but in the end we were able to get a huge fire going. Since we also had the first cookout there was nowhere to sit yet, so we gathered the freshmen and moved three fallen trees to use as benches. The freshmen were super reluctant at first, but eventually we were able to get the biggest tree that we could find over to the fire. On cookout one of the things is cooking the steamboats that we made at camp, which can usually take some time, so the seniors had to come up with a bunch of games to play while we waited. Once the food was ready everyone just sat around the fire eating, talking and making s’mores. After cookout was finally over we headed back to camp and then went to bed. The second day was basically the same structure; we ate breakfast then got ready for our first session. We started off in the forest again, this time my group was in the lower slope and we measured tree heights and gathered soil to test later. In the stream we caught crawfish again to see if we could get a rough population density for the area, then we measured depths and velocities of various parts of sinking creek. After lunch we went into the forest again, this time in the rain, and walked the entire transect line to make observations of the three zones. Then we went into the upper slope and looked at ground cover. For stream we riffled, which is like collecting small microorganisms which we can observe later. After dinner we had two more sessions first stream, where we looked at the organisms that we found and then forest where we examined the soil that we had gathered, because this was mainly student work, the seniors had a lot of down time where we played more than a few games of uno. It was also storming that night so the group on their cookout had to come back to camp which made things a little bit crowded. On Tuesday, we had our final two sessions. First we went into the forest again; our group went back to the riparian zone and we looked at different wildlife and insects that we found. There was an unofficial contest to find the coolest bug, and our group should have won. The last stream session is when we seined. We took two big nets and caught larger fish and more crawfish. After lunch there was mandatory fun time organized by the seniors. Luckily the rain stopped enough for us to have an awesome float trip, which was super fun. Then we got to hold a volleyball tournament between the different cabins. Leading up to the winning team playing the seniors and of course the seniors winning. The last part of the fun time we played dreyland themed taboo, the seniors made cards in advance for different things that were Burroughs related. The last night was very relaxed, while all of the freshmen were franticly working on their packets the seniors and the teachers chilled by the fire and once the cookout came back all of the seniors headed out to the gravel bar to hang out for a little bit. It was nice to relax after all of the craziness the freshmen put us through. Once we had to go back to camp we all played cards for a while until about midnight and then we went to bed. In the morning we cleaned up camp, loaded the vans and watched the kids finish their packets. Two seniors were asked to ride up the hill and unload the luggage, so Kate and I did not have to hike up, which was a definite plus.

The Monday after, we had to grade all of the kids work. So the first session seniors graded all of the forest packets and the second session graded the stream. Grading was fairly uneventful except for every once and a while there would be kids who people really felt bad for. Overall it was a great experience and I was very glad to go to Dreyland one last time.

Freedom School:

            Day One:

The second thing that I did for May Project was volunteer at an elementary school in the Ucity area called the Freedom school. They have students in kindergarten up to fifth grade. On my first day I did a lot of behind the scenes work. Since they had spirit week the week that I was there they needed a lot of help getting things ready. On Tuesday I spent all of my time creating passports for all of the kids. These were for the spirit day activity on Wednesday. So I had to first cut all of the papers for the inside then I wrote each kid’s name on their passport and cut and glued their picture to the page. Once those were done I cut out all of the covers and put one on each kid’s passport, folded them and then stapled them. Lastly I organized them by class and wrote their date of birth and country of birth on each one. It was a very time consuming task.

Day Two:

After I had made all of the kids’ passports I was very excited to see what they were going to be used for. For their spirit week the school put on culture day, all of the kids were split up into different groups and they “traveled” around the school to classrooms that were themed as different countries. There were a few parent volunteers who taught about the countries, because many of the students come from refugee families in the area or have parents who have been missionaries in other countries. I was stationed in Kenya helping the kindergarten teacher Ms. Mercy who was actually born in Kenya. It was super cool to hear all about Kenya and interact with the kids at the same time. Each country also had a different game that the kids played. Seeing how the kids were so eager to learn about different places and their culture was awesome.

Day Three:

On Thursday I helped a lot behind the scenes again. This was mainly because Friday they had their field day and the teachers needed a lot of help getting things ready because they do not have a huge staff. So while the kids and teachers were all watching a talent show I spent the day running around like crazy. First I laminated a huge banner to hang up, and then I created ten team signs, one for each team. Then I had to gather supplies for each game, so I had to see what the game was and what it needed then run around the campus to get all of the materials that I needed. The last thing that I did was put stakes on all of the signs for the games.

Day Four:

Friday was the school’s field day and my last day volunteering. I was assigned to be a leader for one of the groups and I was a little bit nervous because this was the most responsibility that I was given the whole week. It turned out to be so much fun. We went around and played all of the games, we actually ended up winning all of the competition ones that we played. After the games there was a mini awards ceremony where each kid got a medal and we took team pictures. I think that Friday was my favorite day because I got to interact with the kids more, which is the reason that I signed up to work there. All of the kids that I met were so great, they always listened to what they were supposed to do and it made the whole experience more enjoyable.