The Firecracker!!

                                            Chinese American Group

                                                 The Most Beautiful Snow Fall

                                          Naturalist out on a forest ecology hike !!

                                       Sunset in Cape May

                                                NYC!!

Spring Season at Mason

I am sorry I have not posted in a few weeks but the season has gotten under way here at camp Mason. We hosted a group of Chinese immigrants from the Lower East Side of Manhattan.  They were such a fun group and so excited to be here. I learned a lot from their teachers and got some great experience in high ropes with them. I have included a picture of me with my group by the firecracker.

  

I have been very busy as a naturalist these last few weeks we are preparing a gardening class to offer in the future. It’s really exciting to design a class that helps kids understand where their food comes from. We have a small garden on camp. I helped build some cold frames which are wooden boxes that have a plexy glass lid that will work as a mini green house and help protect the early spring plantings from frost.  Also we are building a composter for students to see how transforming your garbage to something good for your garden. We are going to be collecting the compostable garbage from the kids in the dining hall. I am designing a poster that follows an average supermarket tomato through its lifespan and compare that to the life of a local organic tomato. It’s so exciting that I get to use and apply my education!

Last weekend we hosted this group called Adventure Guides it’s a group of dads with their daughters and sons. This weekend we hosted a group of 350 girl scouts and their mothers. I can say that the 2 groups could not have been more different. I spent a lot of time with the girl scouts I had the same troop of 1^st and 2^nd graders all day they were so cute and so into the activities. That was not case for their mothers. I taught them pond ecology where we find macro invertebrates in the mud of the pond so it’s pretty much digging out cool bugs from the pond with nets and the girls loved it a few of the moms ran away screaming with their daughters tried to show them what they found. This class completely restored my faith in the fact that girls are so easily taught the behavior of being scared of bugs because these 8 years olds could not be happier to play with critters from the lake.

Besides working hard as a naturalist I’ve been exploring New Jersey. I went down to Cape May the southernmost tip of the state to visit Brielle and the boys Aiden and Linden. The Beach was beautiful maybe a little cold but it was nice to see friends. Brielle also came up for a visit and we went to New York City for the day. I was very interested in getting good food since the camp food is really starting to get old.  I will try to post more often than this sorry for the long wait for the update but I have been busy sending out my resume and cover letters to jobs for the summer and beyond. If anyone knows of something interesting coming up let me know!

From 70's to Snow!

Well another week is over here at Camp Mason. We had some wacky weather around here. Last week we were seeing temperatures in the 70s. Monday morning we all woke up to 3 inches of snow. It snowed all morning on Monday. Most of it melted on Tuesday and then Wednesday we woke up to another 5 inches or so. I think total camp got about 10 inches when it was all said and done. The snow caused some issues for camp. One group was already here on Monday but the school groups that were supposed to come Wednesday at noon delayed their arrival and only the 8^th graders from the school showed up. So all that prep I did for teaching was unnecessary.

The group that was here on Monday was a peer leadership group from Rutherford they were excellent! I am so glad that was my first experience with a student group. There were only about 30 of them and they were here for 3 days so we got to know them pretty well. The first class we did was full high ropes. I was thankfully firmly on the ground watching the students hook up their own life lines in the trees which made me super nervous. A few of the kids stumbled on the elements which I had to talk them through standing back up. Tuesday afternoon we took a nice 4 hour hike with the group up to the fire tower.

                Throughout Wednesday night we got about 5 inches of snow and it snowed all morning. I belayed the vertical playpen which was a really good experience. The group was so good they would take the time to talk their team mates through the element and help each other.  Right next to the VP there is the pamper pole which is a telephone pole about 25 feet high the kids climb to the top of it and then jump off while in the harness and they try to jump up high enough to ring the bell. The wire that holds the kids up is connected high in the trees. The snow that fell was heavy beautiful snow that hung on all the tree branches. The first kid that jumped from the pamper pole shook the tree so much all the snow came down at once off the branches. It was like we were all literally in a snow globe for a few seconds. You could not even see the kid who had jumped off it was a white out but a really cool experience.

                Kara one of my fellow naturalists and I had to design a service project for the kids. It has to be something with meaning, something that will be permanent around camp so that when they come back they will see that their service mattered and there has to be a job for each one of the kids. Kara had the idea to make conservation signs for bathrooms in the cabins. We looked up a few facts that we had them draw, woodburn, or paint on to wood signs. The facts we came up with were:

Only 1% of the water on planet earth is good for drinking so don’t waste it.

It takes 1 tree to make a roll of paper towels… so save an animal’s home and use less.

One flush of the toilet uses 7 gallons of water to if its yellow let it mellow.

If you turn the water off every time you brush your teeth you can save over 250 gallons of water a month

It was really fun and the kids did a good job! We will have to design more service projects throughout the season so there will be lots of opportunity for more service projects.

                The group that did end up making it up to camp despite the snow was an 8^th grade group. Working with 8^th graders made me realize that I never want to re live 8^th grade.  The kids were more into who likes who and who is cool than they were with our classes. It was a difficult group but I made it through and I learned lots of tips on how to deal with uninterested students.  Next week looks really fun; there is a group from the lower East side of Manhattan. They are recent immigrant mainly from China who are coming to camp to have a traditional American experience. I will post more next week hopefully more pictures !!

 This is a Picture of the dam that holds back the small lake on camp

 The Beautiful lake on Camp

 These are pictures of the Geology Hike we take our kids on through the Delaware Water Gap

 My House or better known as the Skip, this picture is taken from the back yard down by the pond

 Meadow Lake as they call it this is my backyard

 Camp Fire pit

The porch :)

Week 3

 I have finished my training here at Camp Mason and this has been quite the week. Last Saturday was my first day working with actual kids. Comfort Zone was the group that came which is a camp for children ages 7 through 17 who are grieving a major loss in their lives. I thought it was going to be a depressing group but they were so fun and full of energy.  In the morning I got the chance to observe ASE which is the Action Socialization experience. It was really good to see how the other naturalists conduct their sessions. In the afternoon I ran the rock wall which was more hectic than I thought it would be. It was run as a recreation period so kids could come and go as they pleased rather than as a structured class time.

The comfort zone group is set up with littles and bigs so each grieving child is paired with an older group member that is there to guide them. I had a young boy Nicholas who was really shy and time, he wanted to climb to the top but he was a little nervous so his big promised that he would climb whatever Nicholas climbed which was really cute until I had to belay this 200 pound man up a rock wall. The day went really well; almost all my climbers made it and they each challenged themselves to push further. Because I am so terrified of heights and climbing the rock wall I have a hard time with the motivational speaking part like when a kid starts to get scared and wants to come down I give in so easily because I think it’s a miracle they got that far. But I will get better at the motivational talk from the ground I learn so much from the people around me.

On Wednesday of this week we were so fortunate to attend the Tri State American Camping Association conference in Atlantic City. The conference offered a bunch of different classes that we got to choose from. They were classes designed to improve camp teaching styles. It was really informative and I took a lot of good tips away from the classes. We stayed one night at the Resorts hotel on the boardwalk. My fellow naturalists and I let loose and had a good time in AC. I might have had too much fun but I did make it through the rest of the conference the next day. Atlantic City has a charming boardwalk which has a mini carnival complete with a Ferris wheel. Some parts of the boardwalk are a little sketchy but it was great to see the Atlantic Ocean and spend some time in 60 degree temperatures.

Friday we returned to camp and got to learn boating on the tiny man made pond here at Camp Mason it was really nice because it got up to 70 degrees on Friday! So basically we got paid to canoe back and forth on the pond in the sunshine if we would have had beer it would have a been a vacation. However the light schedule is over starting Monday I will be teaching for real!! We have school groups all next week and I could not be more nervous. I will be working with a group of 8^th graders from a Friend school which means it’s a Quaker school. I’m still not sure what that means but apparently they are expected to be an above average group. I will be teaching geology, wetlands and directing a service project. Also I will be leading a four hour hike to the fire tower in the water gap. I have spent all day preparing and I will doing this again all day tomorrow. I am learning so much myself I just hope I can give an interesting class to these kids.  

I’m sure next time I will have so much to share.

Also as a side note I would like to express my sorrow for the recent Gregori Family losses. It breaks my heart and I am so sorry I could not be there to show my support during this sad time. Let’s just get through the rest of March :) 

Introduction to my new life

Hi Everyone,

I have started this blog for two reasons my Mom  tells me that people keep asking how I’m doing out in New Jersey so I want to keep everyone back in Minnesota informed on my life out here but also I thought this would be a good way to journal my experiences as a first time naturalist. For those of you who do not know I have accepted my first real world job as a Naturalist for Camp Mason in Hardwick New Jersey.

What is a Naturalist? Well a Naturalist can be many different things but usually it is a person who is well versed in ecology and nature and they teach to others. National Parks and conservation areas usually have naturalists. I am working for Camp Mason which runs an Outdoor Education program during the spring a fall season so I will be teaching to kids. We will usually have school groups but there are weekend groups as well like Boy Scout troops church groups and different private groups that come to Camp Mason.

I have just completed my training so tomorrow will be my first day actually working with kids. There are so many different classes that we offer here. Just to list a few there is:

Forest Ecology

Archeology

Tracking

Geology

Survival

Pioneer Living

Beaver Pond Hike

Geocaching

Native American Lore

Then on top of the educational classes that is an ASE course here on camp. ASE stands for Action Socialization Experience. On a forested hillside there are about 15 different elements that are all designed to make a group of kids work together enhance communication and overcome challenges. There are a lot of different kinds of challenges some might be physical challenges others are brain teasers. One example is a Tarzan rope and on either side there is a platform the kids must cross from one platform to the other; everyone has to end up on the other side which is a tight fit.

The third challenge here at Camp Mason is the High Ropes elements. There are 7 different high ropes elements that are meant to challenge kids physically and mentally. One of the high ropes elements is called the vertical playpen which is a team activity there are 2 sides to the play pen which consist of different obstacles that kids have to climb like tires strung down a cable or blocks of wood with staples in them. I am of course terrified of anything in the air so that is a challenge for me I hope to push myself further every time I attempt an element.

Well that is a about camp but as far as my life here in New Jersey goes I love it so far. The other resident naturalist and I live in an old yellow house about 3/4^th of a mile up the road from Camp. It was donated to the camp by an old woman who also was a camp director her nickname was Skipper so our house is referred to as the SKIP. It sits on a beautiful pond which the sun rises over in the morning. North Western New Jersey is gorgeous country like nothing I have ever seen. There are think mixed forests on rolling hills. The narrow winding roads are littered with stone cottages, windmills and barns.

The wildlife here is insane. Yesterday we listened to a talk about Black Bears which thrive in this part of the State to the point where they are becoming a habitual nuisance. There are over 4000 bears in New Jersey most in my neighborhood. A black bear boar or adult male can weigh as much as 900 lbs. They can have as many as 6 cubs every year and produce a litter every year from the time that a sow is 3 years old and they can live to be 25! They have no natural predators and thanks to garbage left out they have plenty to eat.

Camp Mason is just a few miles from the Delaware Water Gap which is a huge cut through the earth that the Delaware River flows through. We went for a hike through there today for Geology. The rain we’ve been getting and the snow melt made for an intense hike.  The creek and the water falls were raging. It is like being in another world everything is green covered in moss and evergreen trees. Geology has been my favorite class so far.

So now you know a little bit about what I am doing out here in New Jersey. I won’t always write this much but I hope you enjoyed reading. I hope to be able to post pictures soon J