Maggie- Urban Ecology- Day Three

Every day is a wonderful day! Today is the third day of our community service in the urban ecology center. As we hoped, we worked on the educational side of the volunteering work today. This morning, I facilitated in a first grade class. The class was talking about the plants’ and animals’ life cycle. We went into the riverside park which is located beside the ecology center. We listened to the birds twitted, we tasted the maple sap, and we experienced the life cycle of a butterfly. The students pretended they were caterpillars and then we changed into butterflies. The ecology center was a great place to educate the students. Grew up as a city child, I know how much I missed the natural environment. Rivers, trees, birds, and fish are not easy for me to see in the city, except in the zoo. At here, the urban ecology center provides all the city kids a great opportunity to see and actually experience the natural environment.   

At afternoon, I facilitated in an eighth graders class, the class content was about acid and base. First, we all went into the park to collect different type of water. We got the Milwaukee’s river water, snow, and ice. Then, we came back into the urban ecology center’s classroom. All the KU volunteers divided up into different student groups; each of us facilitates one group of students to finish an experiment of testing the PH rate of the different type of water. At the end of the class, some students from my group told me that the class isn’t boring as they thought; they actually had fun in this class. It again lets me to appreciate the UEC. It is a great place to educate students. While the students having fun in the center, they also are gaining more knowledge. Using the UEC facilities and the park’s resources to provide a chance to students to have an actual hands-on experience is definitely helps the educators to make the class more interesting. It brings the students’ interests to learn the new information. The ecology center is a great place to teach children to learn about the nature.

As a city child, I always felt that I am privileged. I had the accessibility to more opportunities and more resources. However, one thing that I never had was enjoy the natural environment. I have never closely seen a wild animal. As a city child, I realized that I also was unprivileged. I missed out of some opportunities of the experience the nature.