MLK Jr and Ed Training

So the service day and ed training are done. Hooray.

For our service day on MLK, Jr. day, we learned about Tsunamis, and then we were split into teams of 3-5 and sent to local towns where we would canvas, giving people information about what to do, how to know if you're in danger (natural warnings rather than official warnings), and where they should go in their community.

I was in a little town called King Salmon, essentially a large trailer park.

Definitely going to be underwater in a Tsunami.
You can see it cause I circled it with red.

The tsunami danger reminded me of tornadoes in the midwest. The warning to watch elevation, the sirens (which either don't exist, don't work, or don't carry far enough in the North Coast area...). The main difference was that everyone in the midwest knows what to do if a tornado is on it's way. Basement, low point, not by a tree. The sirens are used, tested regularly, and acknowledged (unless you're in the middle of nowhere). Not so much for tsunamis.

WSP member Tambra pushing her independent service project at
King Salmon's Tsunami information station

Thus the event, while being in its first year and thus poorly organized (not enough sandwiches for people, no organized rides to the communities-to-be-canvassed), was still clearly helpful for a number of community members. A lot of people knew where to go, but not necessarily the natural warning signs. And of course a lot of people knew what to look for or feel, but didn't know where to go.

------------------------------

The education training was alright. We went through a lot of stuff that was redundant, considering the number of field trips Heidi and I have done at SPAWN. But we also learned a lot of new games to play and useful tips on classroom management, we dissected a steelhead trout, and went through what is required to complete our "Real Science" portion of the AmeriCorps WSP.

One of the new games is a salmon pageant. I was a shimmery, shiny smolt.
Jacob is a spawner (adult coming back to spawn)

Another new activity is fish printing - using plastic fish molds,
painting them, and then pressing them to paper. Yay a fish.


Are you ready steelhead? It's going to hurt.


I told you so.


Fish organs. Tasty. Or not so much.

We also met the new January hires (there's an October hire period and a January hire period in the WSP), one who is from Champaign-Urbana and went to Parkland. Yay chambananites.

We played catchphrase and drank cheap beer.

It was colder up there, and I spotted some snow on the drive back! Driving along hwy 101, Heidi slowed and I rolled the window down and took a couple pictures. Kristin laughed. One of the pictures showed up.

SNOW! Or possibly ice/frost that never melted if it's always in the shade.
I'd like to believe it's snow.

You can kind of see the white ahead along the road...
another small patch of snow. /frost. Didn't turn out so well.


I like this town's sign. It's a fairly large town along hwy 101.

While we did have to buy our dinners while we were up there, we got to claim them as expenses. Of course we won't see that money for many, many months. I did finally receive my physical reimbursement ($70.15!) from September. I think I may have been the first person to receive it!! Yay money.

-------------------------------

Talking to Kristin, who is the AmeriCorps WSP at Institute for Fisheries Resources, made me really curious in possibly serving a second year, specifically at her site. The position at IFR is all policy, so no field work and little outreach. I would really like to know more and experience more of the policy side of this whole industry, but I'm not sure I'd want to spend an entire 11 months away from field work and outreach. Currently I feel like I learn something new every day or at least reinforce newly acquired knowledge. I have this fear that I'd forget all this new knowledge.

Whatever, it's a long ways away before I need to start worrying about applying for another job.

Field Trip!

Well, the Coho Salmon run has ended. We took out 6 school groups this past week from preschool to high school (on probation, failed out of other school type high schoolers) and only 4 groups saw any fish, and most of those groups just saw a sad, wasting away female. Only one group saw her do anything besides swim a little downstream (she muscled her way over some shallow rocks creating this wall of water behind her).

I'm glad it's over. Heidi and I have discovered that any age group can come out for the creekwalks, but the walk's appropriateness is entirely dependent on the teacher's control of their students and the students' respect for others.

With the end of the Coho Salmon run also comes the end of creekwalks. This weekend is the last weekend of volunteer naturalist led creekwalks that SPAWN puts together, and HOORAY. I am so sick of coming to the office and returning a bazillion phone calls saying the exact same thing to every person.

This new week ERA brings me and Heidi first to the Eureka/Fortuna, CA area (where the AmeriCorps WSP home office is) for a MLK Jr Service Day and then Education Training.

Tomorrow is the Service day - we'll canvas the area teaching people about disaster preparedness (i love knocking on unsuspecting people's doors in the middle of the day when they're napping, or reading, or otherwise enjoying their leisurely day off and then telling them all about awful things like tsunamis and earthquakes. yay).

Tuesday and Wednesday is Education Training. AmeriCorps WSP requires that we go into a classroom a set number of times and teach a set curriculum. I'm actually really looking forward to this part. I feel like a lot of salmon related questions I answer I'm not necessarily answering completely correctly - I'm using the background information that I already have and picking up on what others say to draw out answers. So I'm excited to really learn this stuff and become a true salmon expert. At least, I hope to become an expert.

The good news is that AmeriCorps will pay for or provide all of our meals for those days, and reimburse our travel (though the reimbursement for these things takes a long time - I still haven't received reimbursement from my October Training week. I'm not looking forward to spending money I'd rather spend on something else and then not having it back for 4 or 5 months).

I'll bring my camera. And I *might* take pictures.