I think that everything went well during our teach in. One good thing were are students, who were very respectful, and another thing that went well was our power point. In the past we were having problems getting the videos to work with our power point, but at the last minute we figured out how to do this, and that really saved the day. I didn’t really feel anything special as a ‘teacher.’ To me it felt a lot like giving a report or the recent science presentations we did. If I could do anything over, I guess i would have had more videos of the interviews and less power point and random speaking. A lot of good footage we took during our visit had to be omitted due to time, which was taken up by what I felt was unnecessary review. Also the computer we used had an issue with the speakers we were using, so the most important interview in my opinion, had to be dropped because it was not compatible with our speakers.

The effects of this project will last forever with me. Our trip to PS 335 became one of the most important eye-opening events of my life. I learned something firsthand, I saw the problem through my eyes, not someone else’s. I felt so many emotions its hard  for me to put them all down. I will always remember this project, and the brave students and faculty of PS 335 and many other schools in New York City all throughout the country.

We had a skecthy start with our set up group, but it ended well and we reached our objective. I enjoyed the lead in, and the attention we were given.

Our fifth visit at PEN, the entire group went to the office after school. Stacy assigned us all a video to watch, a recording of a speech from a PEN event the day before. We were told to write down quotations that we thought were “highlights” or the most important lines in the speech. After we did this, we all sat down and shared the quotes we had written down. A lot of the ones we picked we shared in common with at least one other person. And then Stacy let us eat cookies, while we talked about the speeches. She had to leave at five thirty, so the discussion was cut short but I enjoyed listening to the speeches.

For my fourth visit I returned to HUC with Ruby.  This visit was not very different from the other visits as we did practically the same thing.  We arrived a little later than usual and began to take food out to the main dining room.  It had been a month since we had visited, so the people there missed us.  I felt that while this visit was rather average compared to all of the other visits, we still accomplished many of our goals and I left with a great feeling of having felt someone in need.  One of the things that I did for the first time on this visit was that I pushed around a cart with soups and sandwiches on it and got to hand them out to the people at the tables.  They were extremely civilized and it was a great job to do and I hope that I will be able to do it again.  I really enjoy visiting HUC and I think that I will continue once we have finished our required five visits.

For my fourth visit I returned to HUC with Ruby.  This visit was not very different from the other visits as we did practically the same thing.  We arrived a little later than usual and began to take food out to the main dining room.  It had been a month since we had visited, so the people there missed us.  I felt that while this visit was rather average compared to all of the other visits, we still accomplished many of our goals and I left with a great feeling of having felt someone in need.  One of the things that I did for the first time on this visit was that I pushed around a cart with soups and sandwiches on it and got to hand them out to the people at the tables.  They were extremely civilized and it was a great job to do and I hope that I will be able to do it again.  I really enjoy visiting HUC and I think that I will continue once we have finished our required five visits.

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This is my fifth post, the last one about a specific visit to BARC. Diana and I went to BARC and filmed a whole lot of footage about cats and everything we’ve learned about them that we’re including in the power point and movie for the Teach In. We talked about Scratch and his FIV, Cherub and his socializing, Provenzano and his anger issues, and many other things. There were a few new cats when we got to the shelter, and two of them were the most adorable kittens EVER. We also saw two new cats (sisters) and it looked like their eyes had been scratched out. It was painful to look out and I felt so bad for them. Hopefully our teach in inspires people to go volunteer at animal shelters!

This is my final response for the entire project. Wow. I think the entire thing went well, but our second class definitely went better than our first. The first time we found a glitch, we didn’t know how to work the projector and so everyone had to gather around my computer for the power point and movie. It still went well, I think. The second time that computer guy helped me attack my computer to the larger computer which was attached to the projector. The kids were able to stay where they were and take notes from there. There were just enough Kat Kookies to go around to everyone (including teachers), and Diana and I had a blast. Playing with the sustainability band was fun, but it was burning hot up there!

Last Saturday Diana and I went to the BARC Animal Shelter in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It was extremely fun, so many kitties! However, all of them were in small cages (except for a few who were roaming around, I guess they rotate) in a dark, kind of creepy room. Volunteering on Saturday is sheerly petting the cats and playing with them– but on other days it’s other things. I’m going to go back there as soon as I can, I can’t wait to see Philip again!

Philip is a small grayish brown tabby with a disease called Bartonella, but it’s thankfully treatable. I learned about that disease, and another called FIV. It’s the same as HIV but for cats. The F stands for feline instead of human. Playing with the cats was incredibly fun, there were so many kinds! They were so sweet too. If you pull up a stool in front of the cage, and open the door, the cat will just walk right out (if they feel like it, most do) and plop on your lap! Provenzano was the one who went on mine, incredibly adorable. Another cat there was oddly named Oscarella, because they thought she was a guy so they named her Oscar. Then they realized she was girl, thus Oscarella. For my next visit I’m definitely going to do something more than playing with the cats. I want to help more. These cats are so cute and need homes so the more I can do to help, the better. Diana and I want to get the grade to sponsor a cat. We got some pictures while we were there, although it was pretty dark.  Hopefully the pictures I uploaded will show up….

RIP Campbell

Malcolm

 

I thought Flow was a very good movie.  There were so many interesting fact.  Some of the chemicals that kill weeds go into the water.  Some scientists at Columbia University tested these chemicals on male frogs.  The frogs actaully grew ovaries and made it capable for them to have babies.  It’s known for men to drink water with those chemicals in it to lose sperm.  One of my favorite parts in the movie was when  some people had a fake brand of water which was called eau du robinet (Which is tap water in french) and had people test it out.  nine out of 10 people said the water was better then tap water.  However, they did not know that  the water they were drinking was tap water.   This movie was so scary.  I thought this water problem was far away but it’s not.  Everyone is running out of water.

Malcolm 4/6/09

Irena Salina Rene

 

 

 

What struck me was that schools and some local governments are trying to prevent people from buying bottled water.  I always thought the local government was for bottled water.  There’s many issues related to water.  Locally (United States) the problem is that bottled water is worse for the environment because when it is being imported the gas causes pollution.  Also tap water is healthy and making the bottles for bottled water isn’t.  Issue with water internationally is that industries are restricting people from drinking fresh water because they have bought out that area and are making them pay for the water.  http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/movies/12flow.html?ref=movies.  This is causing the people who were drinking from these water sources to have to drink in a contaminated pond.

 

Malcolm 4/6/09

S8A Video chat

Nile, MIlo, Rene, Jonah, Thomas

 

I learned that students from Hotchkiss are making their classmates bring in cup from their house so they don’t waste paper cups or plastic bottles.  I think this is a good idea for LREI.  I know in the lower grades like kindergarten the kids bring in their own cups.  I think we should carry that on in the rest of the school.  I don’t think that most of the kids will agree with this but I think the principals will.  Some of the teachers at LREI have water bottles and that might inspire the kids to bring their own cup or bottle to school,  I don’t think we learned much from the kids at Hotchkiss.  The only thing I learned was what I stated earlier.  It doesn’t seem like these kids are very committed to their project.  Also the technology made it difficult.  The responses lagged.  I want to ask my group members what they thought of the video chat.  I didn’t speak with them a lot about that.  I wonder if they agree with me?

Malcolm 3/23/09

Charity Water Jonah MIlo Thomas rene Nile

 

 

The first thing noticed when I came in the room was that they had really interesting pictures on the wall.  My favorite one had young African boy carrying jericho bottle on his head.  I was drawn to it because it showed me how hard a young boys in Africa is.  Soon we sat down and we talked with a girl named Georgia about the project.  It seemed that she was pretty interested in our project.  She gave us information about Charity Water.  One of the things that I found interesting about  Charity water is that they sell a bottle of water for 20 dollars.  The 20 dollars supply a person in Africa with fresh water for six years.  I thought that was great.  Also they were building wells in tons of locations in Africa.  I thought this place was doing some awesome stuff so I really want to have further visits with Charity Water.  At the end of the visit they gave us charity water bracelets and a huge keg to show us how the Africans carried their water.  We hope this keg might inspire some kids at the day of learning to help out with this water situation.

Malcolm 3/12/09

Tap’d NYC Rene Thomas NIle

 

I really enjoyed visiting Tap’d.  I learned a lot about tap’d that I didn’t know.  Before the meeting I was not sure what the goal was.  When I heard they were against bottle water but they were selling their own bottle water I thought it was a bit weird.  They cleared it up telling me that the their bottle water was actually tap water.  I was forced to move into this water group because I didn’t have scheduled meeting for my local foods idea.  This group turns out great for me because importing the water is from local places.  I’m really happy I’m in it.  Also at the meeting we outlined what we were going to do for the next meetings.  We’ve planned to visit the water factory in New Jersey and advertise tap’d so more stores sell it.  I’m really excited to do further work.

I thought the teach in went well.  The kids didn’t really listen but I think we did get a message out.  I thought this was a hard project but it was worth it.  I thought our test taste didn’t go to well because you could guess if the water was tap or bottled easily.  Otherwise it went well.

Last week the night before our sustainability teach in; I watched the movie Flow which i presented to the rest of the middle school the next day. It’s won over 4 awards and is a movie i encourage every one to watch. Not only does it have a direct connection to my topic (water). It also shows more about the obsurd ways big companys are taking advantage of people all around the world. There are some really interesting interviews with people who make you realize that the we are not only ruining our world, but killing ourselves too. By the end of the movie, I was ready to take action and spread the word about what we as a community are unconsiously doing. I think that this movie should be seen by our middle school, it would wake kids up and make them realize that they can and HAVE to start at making a difference. 

This is my fifth post, the last one about a specific visit to BARC. Diana and I went to BARC and filmed a whole lot of footage about cats and everything we’ve learned about them that we’re including in the power point and movie for the Teach In. We talked about Scratch and his FIV, Cherub and his socializing, Provenzano and his anger issues, and many other things. There were a few new cats when we got to the shelter, and two of them were the most adorable kittens EVER. We also saw two new cats (sisters) and it looked like their eyes had been scratched out. It was painful to look out and I felt so bad for them. Hopefully our teach in inspires people to go volunteer at animal shelters!

This is my final response for the entire project. Wow. I think the entire thing went well, but our second class definitely went better than our first. The first time we found a glitch, we didn’t know how to work the projector and so everyone had to gather around my computer for the power point and movie. It still went well, I think. The second time that computer guy helped me attack my computer to the larger computer which was attached to the projector. The kids were able to stay where they were and take notes from there. There were just enough Kat Kookies to go around to everyone (including teachers), and Diana and I had a blast. Playing with the sustainability band was fun, but it was burning hot up there! 

I think that the Teach In was three quarters of a success.  The first song went really well, and the Movie by Liam C, Thomas and Nile was just fantastic.  But as luck would have it, our, Charles and I, first group acted like they did not want to be there, until we started to play games.  They started to perk up when the prizes for the games were extra juice bottles.  They really didn’t get the message we were trying to get to them.  The second group was much better though.  This time, we had the projector, so we read them some facts about homelessness and hungry, and then we made the sandwiches and cards.  This group really wanted to be there.  They acted like they wanted to be there, and they were really interested about homelessness and hungry.  We played music and had a really good time.  But same as the first group, we ran out of cards and food to make, so we started to play games.  The prizes were candy, and some extra sandwiches that Charles had made.  Unfortunately, there were some people that would beg and plead for the candy, and that got really annoying after a while.  So I just said to them that if they kept on pleading and whining for candy, they would get none, and that pretty much quieted them down.

 

            I thought that the ending movie about flow was just fantastic.  I never learned so much from a single movie.  I am definitely not drinking bottled water anymore.  I also think that the movie by Laurence, Atlas and Nile (I think) was okay, but it seemed like they rushed it though.  In the end, I think that the Teach In was really fun, even though it was not a complete success.

 

            I thought that the ending movie about flow was just fantastic.  I never learned so much from a single movie.  I am definitely not drinking bottled water anymore.  I also think that the movie by Laurence, Atlas and Nile (I think) was okay, but it seemed like they rushed it though.  In the end, I think that the Teach In was really fun, even though it was not a complete success.

I thoroughly enjoyed the day of learning.  The kids we taught genuinely seemed as though they were interested in learning about the water crisis.  They were alert during our activities, asked questions and shared facts they knew.  Their favorite activity by general consensus was the jerry can race, especially the second group.  We took them out to Houston street, and had the kids walk across the park and back holding two jerry cans.  It provided a very small taste of what children in impoverished countries have to go through on a daily basis; except they walk for miles and miles.  The second group we had was much more difficult than the first.  The first group was very cooperative, and complied with out instructions with no problems.  The second group, however, constantly argued and messed around during a few of our activities.  It took quite a bit of persuading and arguing to get them quiet.

The videos we watched were very educational.  They described the sustainability topics we worked on concisely and effectively.  Liam’s video was particularly good, it was very well made and expressed the goal of our day of learning very well.  While our set-up group finished relatively quickly, I learned about organic practices, and statistics relating to organic food growth in the United States.  Overall, the day of learning was a great culmination of our work over months.  I learned a great deal of information, and I’m sure everyone in the middle school also did.

First off, I have to say that this project was tiring and A LOT of work but SO INTERESTING and fun! It made me really think about how I live my life and what I can do to make the world more “green.” My work shop went really well. We were cutting short of time before it started and we had to run out and get more materials and had to print out papers, but we made it by a short thread and the work shop went great. The first session we took a lot of time with the presentation that the kids did not really get much time to present their ginger bread houses in the end. But we learned from the first session of what not to do for the second. The second session went great! I think what was hard was that it was in the library and we were always worrying every five seconds making sure nothing got on the ground. Other then that, everything went well. I learned a lot from this project and I think that next year the one thing we should change is that we make the park clean up a few days after, I was really tired from the day and I thought we should of relaxed after it was all over and when we all got a good night of rest, we could go to the park and put a lot of effort into the clean-up, but it was not a big deal and I was happy in the end that I did a good deed. I had a great experience and I hope the kids I taught did too. THANK YOU MOMII AND SARAH!!

I really enjoyed The Teach-In.  It definitely wasn’t as nerve-racking and intimidating as I thought!  Shulian was a very good partner because we were both very interested in the topic, which was a unique one.  I had a lot of fun seeing the 5th, 6th, and 7th graders get interested in dissecting the owl pellets.  The day didn’t go by too quickly, which was good because it made it feel like we really spent our time to do a lengthy and fulfilling presentation.  It was really fun passing on all the information we learned to the younger kids.  I know this is not information I will ever forget.  After all these visits, I feel like a pro! (which was especially important when giving this information to others)  Allowing us to do this project over a long-period of time let us really soak up the topic we were learning about.  I am also glad we got to do visits outside of school.  It was also really fun watching the movies made by the movie set-up groups, and watching Flow by Irena Salina.  Flow really gave me a lot of information.  The fact that Poland Spring is owned by Nestle, which is an un-green company, made me reconsider what I am drinking.  Also, I told my parents to stop buying so many bottles of water!  This entire day has inspired me to make a list of things I can do to be more green.  It would be awesome to change this world ourselves! (we really have no other choice)  This is definitely a project that should be done again and again!  

Brooklyn Children’s Museum is slated to be New York City’s first green museum, as certified by the leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program of the U.S. Green Building Council. I visited this museum last week and I did not really like it. Honestly I thought it was just like the others. But the only diffrence is that when I walked out of the other musuems that i visited, I was surprised and shocked, but when I walked out of this one, I was just bored and not that intrested. Maybe why was because I already knew everything from the previouse musuems that I went to. The museum integrates many of the latest environmentally responsible building materials, systems, and managements practices. Wherever possible, the architecture design specified green materials-those made from renewable sources or with high levels of recycled content..

In total I am relieved that the whole project is over.  Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed the whole process but it was stressful to put the whole thing together and I haven’t gotten much sleep this whole week because it has been fretful and jam packed.  Beside the point I felt like the Teach-in was an unexpected success for me.  I felt like I was underprepared and that the activity that I had planed wasn’t fulfilled enough.  If I were to give a suggestion for next year the deadline for the completed workshop should be a few days before because a demo workshop must be given to the eighth graders not teachers.  I feel like giving the workshop for actual kids will give you a better, more realistic run through.  I am saying this because if my entire workshop was ready a few days before, which was difficult I have been preparing it for a few weeks, but if it was I would have been able to make my activity more exciting and fun filled instead of being more a lecture like workshop.  To move back into how the whole day went I would say, as I said before, went unexpectedly well, this was mostly because of the workshop because I was fairly confident of the movie that my set up group made for the opening presentation.  I felt the movie played out well and all of the tech stuff through out the day ended on a good note, a few bumps, but as I said ended on a good note.  Continuing on to the workshop part of the day.  For me both of my groups were good for different reasons.  I really enjoyed teaching a lot of the 5th and 6th graders because they seemed really interested during my first workshop.  Each workshop was different each time I gave it.  One time seemed more interactive as I gave the presentation and didn’t spend as much time on the role-playing part as I wanted to.  The second time around I spent less time on being interactive and the presentation so I could get to the role-playing part at the end quicker and spend more time on it.  Each time was different, the first time around everyone seemed really interested except for the two seventh graders.  Then the second time around it looked like everyone was interested.  Also, the teachers in the room (Sherezada for both workshops and Sharon for the second) was really helpful for giving me information about how much time I had left and making sure I kept my workshop to speed and kept the kids under control.  They were a big help, thank you to them.  To conclude I would just like to say the whole thing went extremely well and I thank all the people who helped set it up and hoped that everyone enjoyed it as much as I did.

I took a visit to the architecture museum where I learned pretty much everything I learned when I went to the visionair building. I went around 4:00pm on Thursday after school. It took me about an hour to get there because of traffic and then once I arrived I walked around and looked at all of the really cool architecture that was displayed. The main thing that the musuem really taught me was that, making architecture green does not have to look bad. You can have a beutiful house and building that saves so much energy and is sustainable but looks nicer then a normal house/building that waists a lot of energy and is not helping our world today. I did not have a tour guide but there were people walking around asking if anyone needed an explanation. This one women, Sandra who was very nice came up to me and asked me a question right away. She asked “Wouldn’t you want a house that is nice and sustainable instead of just a house that can or can not be nice that is making the world come to an end soon?” I was a litte spooked at first because I did not know if she wanted me to anwser. I just kind of thought to myself about what she was asking. After a few seconds she said, “ok, I will leave you to your visit and you just keep that question in your head”I walked around for about an hour and when I walked out of the museum, my mind was more open then it was when I walked in.

I thought that overall today was very successful.  I found that the second time around during our workshop was much easier because we didn’t completely understand what we were dong the first time.  The first time was a learning experience.  From what I experienced during our workshop, I can safely say being a teacher is not easy.  One problem was having the prize (blow-pops) in sight of the kids.  No kid will spot candy without asking excessively when they will be getting it.  I think that the first video that was shown in the big room was very effective and even I learned from it, even after studying the topic of the video for two months!  The dramatic effect of it was a big turn-on for the viewers.  This was made obvious by the faces that turned up when the final part of ‘Carmina Burana: I. O Fortuna was played.  I also found that ‘Flow’ was very informative about the wrongs to the environment going on across the planet.

I think overall our activity went really well. I think the second period went a little better than the first of course, because by the second period we really had everything down. We were able to give the kids a substantial amount of information, and also summarize our own experiences and sustainability visits. Then of course all of the kids had fun making gingerbread houses and working with candies. What was surprising was that the younger kids, in the 5th grade, put more effort and used more creativity and knowledge from what we taught them, into their gingerbread houses than the kids in 7th grade did for example. Everyone seemed to really grasp the concept of living a greener life, which was nice to see. I think if there was one thing we could’ve done to make it better was to practice, but other than that it went well. Unfortunately, because we needed more time to set up, I had to miss the videos and songs that were played during the meeting. I enjoyed being able to teach the kids, and having them learn new things. I had a lot of fun.

Let me just start out by saying that this was one of my most favorite projects ever!!! i thought that it was really fun teaching the kids becuase they catually listened and did what we said to do and they really enjoyed our activity (RESTYLED).  The only thing that i was worried about was the fact that we had a double workshop and I thought that the kids would finish before the scheduled time and we would not have anything to do…BUT to my surprise the time went by really fast and everyone wanted more time! i think that a challenge for me was being able to help them if they needed help with ideas because sometimes i didn’t know what to sayand i was of no help.  i think something i would have changed about the workshop would be maybe we should have made shirts with them, to give examples (we were going to do that but then we didn’t).  Overall this was an amazing project and i really learned so much,that i think i can actually benafit from: boosting my creativity, teaching, conserving, sustaining, and being GREEN! 

Thanks Everyone!    

I am glad to say the Teach-In was a success.  My second workshop went more smoothly than the first.  The first workshop was full of friends I knew very well and they didn’t take it that seriously.  That made it more difficult for me to concentrate.  The second workshop went much more smoothly.  The kids took it more seriously and I was more relaxed and confident.  One thing I learned about teaching is it’s a lot easier if you aren’t close friends with the people you are teaching.   I think when you are a teacher you need to be a friend but not that close a friend.  I enjoyed working in our set up groups even though we had to stay until 5:30 we accomplished a lot and had a good time.  Sophie taught us how to do the “stanky leg.”  From watching “Flow” I was shocked to learn that bottled water and tap water are the same thing.  It was so funny when they did the bottled water taste test in the restaurant and people preferred “tap water over tap water,” thinking it was bottled water.  I also have a new perspective on Nestles and won’t just think of them as a good chocolate maker.  Overall, I have learned so much from our sustainability project.  I met people like Carey Pulverman, Amanda, John and Peter who help save our planet by educating people about reducing how much garbage ends up in our landfills.  I went from being afraid of red wriggle worms to being an expert on them.  Although I must admit, I still gag when it comes to dealing with 1,000 of them all at once.  I just remind myself they mean no methane and no ammonia polluting our air. This project introduced me to the world of urban composing and when we began I never even heard of it.  I also learned a lot from visiting Animal Haven about non-kill non-profit animal rescue centers.  Animal Haven is a great organization to work with because they taught me how to make kitties with leukemia comfortable and how to socialize animals so they can find homes more easily.  I hope all the people at the Lower East Side Ecology Center and at Animal Haven keep fighting the good fight to sustain our planet.  And I will try to do my part too even though this project is over.

I think our workshop went just as we had planned.  We taught everyone about recycled clothing and art and also let them have enough time to work.  It was very helpful having people in our workshop who were interested in the topic.  Everyone was enthusiastic while also concentrating on their task.  At the end, everyone had something great to share.

We really prepared for this day of learning, and we were ready to make the class have the best time they could have. And we really did that. Are teach-in turned out to be great. What we did was we explained our topic which was energy efficiency, and we told them that we focused on wind generated energy. We told them how we created the idea, of choosing wind energy, obviously coming from our visits at Bluestreak. We went on to the show them a couple of videos on how some Wind Turbines looked like, like ones in Palm Springs that Laurence got to see. We asked them if any of them have seen them, and they answered : “Yes I’ve seen many in Europe.” That related to one of our questions, “why are there more Wind Turbines in Europe?” Which was answered that there is more wind their. Which is correct. We showed them a really cool video of one Wind Turbine in Denmark actually collapsing. We also showed them the difference between Horizontal and Vertical turbines. They really enjoyed are 15 minute conversation and they were really engaged. Than we went to our “game” which was basically that we made a Wind Turbine and we let them create  their own fans and do different styles and we had a competition on who’s was the fastest/worked the best. They really had a great time doing this. They made all different types of designs and they even colored them to make cool effect when the fan was spinning on the turbine. The way we made it spin, was that it was energized by a fan. The kids had a great time and their reflections turned out to be really good. We had a great 90 minutes prepared for these kids and it worked out to be great. We had a great teach-in! I also want to thank Steve Volkmann for all the help he put into our project, to make it the best. And my group was awesome also.Jeff Banastey

The end result was so much better than what I thought it was going to be. We ended up with some creative messages and some really eye-appealing public service announcements. The kids seemed to be really engaged during the workshop and I think something we could have done was though of some things to talk about to keep the conversation flowing during the activity. Overall I think we did a really good job and really informed the kids on our main goal.  With our set-up group I am not really sure if we had an impact. I mean the posters were hung up around the lunchroom, but might have just been ignored. If there were some announcement about it, maybe people would have seen it.

Last week Isabella and I visited the AC&C once more and talked to Matt Wildman. We received not much more information then last time, however we were able to correct any facts we thought were untrue. We corrected the fact that there are actually 26,00 animals out of the 44,000 animals that get adopted and the other 18,000 animals get put to sleep. We talked to him about what we were going to do and he seemed pleased and even told us about the stuff the AC&C would like to be donated to the shelter. We got to see the animals again today and there were a lot more then last time. However all the dogs and cats we saw last time were not there. This is a good thing and we are really happy that we will be able to spread the word during our workshop and really show people what is going on. Socializing with the animals is very important because it keeps the animals happy and friendly towards humans. Our contact person Matt Wildman also gave us a packet that had some resources for spaying and neutering your dogs. We took some video footage of the animals to use in a brief film during our workshop. After finishing our filming we packed up and thanked Matt Wildman for all his help and promised to show him some of the PSA’s at a further time.

Today we went to the Bark Fest at Macy’s for our final visit. It is a brunch at Macy’s where you can bring any kind of pet you want and there is music and mini shows and food. When I first heard about it, I thought that it would be just like a big breakfast except with pets there, but it was a lot different. All of the dogs were dressed up, some more than others (they got all of the attention from the camaras). There were hamsters and turtles, but mostly dogs. Some of the dogs were dressed the same as their owners. Apparently, there are 6 famous dogs in the US and 4 of them were at the brunch. They were all decked out. There was a designer there who designed an outfit for his and one other dog. All the owners were talking to their dogs and many were wheeling their dogs around in carriages. I sold raffle tickets while I was there. We raised almost $3oo. They gave away bone frames, treat bowls, a dog bag, and a ginormous croc that was a dog bed. There was a dog show there also. If you sneezed, the dog would bring you a tissue. It played poker and basketball and did many other tricks. After the brunch there was a pet-tastic parade. We didn’t stay for that, we just helped them pack their car and left. Overall, at Animal Haven i realized how everything they do is for the animals and the benefit of the organization and not for themselves.   

I thought that overall the day went really well. I think that the second workshop was better because we had already been through the actual thing once and knew what we had to do to make it better. It was difficult to control the kids and keep them listening without prizes though. I felt like all they wanted was the candy and weren’t really willing to learn anything. Many of them wrote that we should have more candy next year when it asked for possible things that we could do for imprvements. I thought that the committtees worked very well together and got everything done in time and done well. I thought that the videos were really good and showed the danger of not improving how the world runs and why it is important to be more sustainable.  

I think that our workshop went really well.  I thought something epically horrible was going to happen and the kids would all hate making the PSAs, but they seemed to enjoy it and really understand what we were trying to get across.  I was a little shaky at the beginning, but my confidence soon grew and I found I could easily talk about all the things I had learned.  The PSAs that we received back from the students were all very nice and well thought out, Aaron and I are in the process of placing them around the school.  We have about half up so far and we are going to put the rest up tomorrow.  I was very happy when I saw someone stop in the hallway and read one of the PSAs that the students created.      

Last weekend Aaron and I visited the AC&C once more and talked to Matt Wildman.  Durning this visit we received more facts about homeless animals in New York City.  Out of the 44,000 animals that come into the shelter each year only 26,000 of them get adopted.  This means that there are 18,000 animals put to death every year simply because there are not enough homes for them.  We socialized with the animals again this visit.  Socializing with the animals is very important because it keeps the animals happy and friendly towards humans.  Happy animals are more likely to get adopted them a depressed, anti-social animal is.  Matt Wildman also gave us a packet full of information about adoption and homeless animals.  In this packet there was a list of things to make sure you can do before adopting a pet.  Aaron and I decided to use this list in our presentation for the Teach In and hand them out to the kids.  

My workshop went really well.  The kids in it seamed interested in making the treats for the cats at Ollies Place.  A lot of them were a bit grossed out at the beginning but got over it.  THey all wanted to make fun shapes; cats, crosses, hot dogs etc.  I thought that the clips from Flow were really cool.  The part about bottled water was interesting.  I usually drink tap but the fact that it says “mountain fresh” and its really from a hose or something is disgusting.  

My sustainability teach in was a success! My group and I finally got to put a months worth of planning and learning to use and we found that we ran out of time because of all the extra facts we were telling the other kids. I thought that our presentation would falter to a 15 minute fight between my group, but unlike the rehearsal last week, the kids we taught seemed to be interested in what we were saying and over all learned from the games we played. The only thing i wanted them to walk away with was knowledge about the water crisis and saying they had fun. I’m really proud of my group and the way we were able to come together in the end and have a great presentation.