I’m excited to share that the blog post I mentioned in last week’s update has officially been published on the Audubon Great Lakes website! You can read it here: https://gl.audubon.org/news/juneteenth-and-father%E2%80%99s-day-celebration-grange-insurance-audubon-center

Each week at the Grange Insurance Audubon Center has been getting busier and busier, and this week was no exception. I finished the first draft of the sponsorship proposal I’ve been working on and reviewed it with my boss. She encouraged me to get as creative as possible with it, add images, and try to condense the descriptions. This is quite a challenge for me because I tend to write a lot, and it’s difficult to know what to take out since everything seems important. Now, I’ll be focusing on making the proposal look more aesthetic, which will involve a lot of trial and error since there are so many directions that I could take it in.

On Wednesday, we had our biweekly meeting at the Columbus Foundation. We discussed many thought-provoking topics, particularly how everyone feels trapped in the current system of capitalism without realizing that other systems exist. Change is necessary, and we left the meeting thinking about how to make that change happen. We contemplated what would happen if everyone empowered themselves instead of leaving power to the top 1%. I often think about this but feel stuck because I don’t know how to transform such a deeply embedded societal system into one that promotes equality and justice for everyone and nature.

After the meeting, I went to the Linden Community Center to help with the after-camp nature-based programming. It was raining, so we stayed inside and played bird bingo, which the kids were super excited about. When the rain slowed down, we took them to the sensory garden, but unfortunately, a lot of it had died because of the extreme heat last week. This was an important lesson for the kids about how climate change can impact plant growth and why it’s crucial to address it.

On Thursday, I helped out with the Audubon Adventure Camp with K-1st graders. This group was definitely more chaotic than the last one and didn’t listen to us as well. We took them down to the river to look for bugs, and they caught a lot of worms, snails, and even some frogs. Later, I went to the Woodward Community Center for more after-camp programming. With over 40 kids, we split them into younger and older groups of 20 and set up two games. I was in charge of the migration game, where kids pretend to be birds facing different obstacles during migration. The younger group was very engaged, but the older group lost interest after about twenty minutes, though they were interested in using binoculars to look for birds. It was super hot that day, so everyone enjoyed popsicles to cool off.

On Friday, camp was more disciplined because we had an older volunteer who knew how to make the kids listen. We took them to the wetlands and gave them nets to catch small creatures. They caught tiny fish, fish eggs, and even a baby turtle! We emphasized the importance of being gentle and quickly returning the creatures to their habitats. We also had them decorate a picture frame and gave them a photo of all the campers together, which the parents loved. We ended the day with nature trivia, and I was impressed by how knowledgeable the kids were about biological processes. I took short videos throughout the day to make a “day in the life” video for social media.

Saturday was a long day because I had to cover for a coworker who had an emergency, working from opening to close by myself. I helped set up for an event starting at 8 AM and had my first experience with event facilitation. There was another event where the Ohio Falconry group brought birds, including a falcon, Harris’s hawk, and my favorite, a Eurasian eagle owl. It was fascinating to learn about these birds and see them fly onto the kids’ arms. I also connected with Nicole Jackson, who also went to OSU, and it was refreshing to hear about her experiences post-college.

Today, I’m back at the center, mainly manning the front desk and talking to visitors. It’s been an incredibly busy week, and I’m excited to see what next week brings!