Long time no post

So, I'm back from camp and it was tiring, hard, but oh so great, too. It took me a few days after getting back to recoop and be able to start thinking about all the good things that happened and all the walls that came down! We started our first post-camp DIG (deeper in God) or cabin-time and I think it went really well! We're going to try to do those weekly with the girls - whoever can come, and whoever new wants to join. I feel bad that I won't be there for a lot of them over the summer, but Megan is going to try to keep doing them:) Yay!

I'm currently teaching a class on water pollution and water quality for Native Amercan students from Iowa, Arizona, and South Dakota. The first few days were a struggle as the students got used to the schedule and I got used to not feeling like I was a star teacher every minute of the day (go figure). I learned to be more flexible and expect more out of the students even when they seemed to not be interested right away. We spent the day outside today sampling water from a local creek and near a local spillway. I think the students liked getting out and getting some hands-on experience in the field. And I liked having a couple additional teachers on-hand in the form of DNR employees who do this training for a living! It was great. I've been learning how to be okay getting things together last-minute as I can't always rely on everyone to think ahead as much as I do - ha. For instance, I am getting an ID and password set up tomorrow morning to use to enter our sampling data into an online database tomorrow morning - eek! Without the ID and password, we can't go any further, so I have a "stall plan" and am trusting that it will work out okay. Also - we changed our sampling site last minute today due to high water levels and I am SO happy it didn't down pour all day so that we c0uld be outside - otherwise I would have had to come up with 5 hours of inside class work - again, eek!

The students are starting individual research projects (informational and experimental in some cases) which they will get to present on the last day (next Friday). They seem pretty interested and I like that they get some choice in this - let them feel excited about learning! And take some pressure off of me to make things interesting. We'll also be doing some tours - of the Iowa City water treatment plant tomorrow, of a research lab on campus on Monday - again, chances for others to talk and a little less pressure for me :) yay! Then we'll have some medical school and nursing school simulations and visits which I hope will be fun for the students. And I think I'm going to loosely structure the rest of the time for the students to work on their presentations.

One problem I ran into that stressed me out a little was that they were going through the material a lot faster than I had planned. Either that or I was getting nervous that they weren't interested and just moved them along faster - oops. So I was forced to come up with a couple other things to do last minute - so I am learning that I need to plan more things than we have time for in case we actually have time for them - ha!

Phew - well, I'm learning a lot and I hope the students are getting something out of it! Another challenge is that they are all at such different levels of science knowledge. Two are almost taking AP Chemistry and Biology courses at the HS in Iowa City (really good HS), while many of them don't even have science labs in their schools nor have they had much science classes! So, I'm trying to create a curriculum that works for all of them - how do teachers do this every day?? I'm learning and I guess I have to if I'm going to do this next year:) hehe

Okay - long post... but it brings you up to date to where I'm at today. Almost 1/2 way through teaching the course and then off to Colorado soon after that - doesn't seem like it's so soon, because I have so much to do with the class before that!

I love life! It's great and I hope you all are doing well, too!
Katie