A day with Anne Runyon

I've been hanging out with Anne Runyon the past few days, resting up before the conference. We were planning to go to Gorges State Park, but instead stayed around Raleigh for the day. Anne showed me some wonderful stories about box turtles in Wildlife in North Carolina magazine. Then, as if that weren't enough, she even made one of her beautiful paper sculptures. I think it looks just like me.

My visit to Granville County ....

Weary from so many travels, Tryon rests up at a small farm in northern Granville County before heading to Raleigh on Oct.  12 and is surprised to find a gorgeous baby diamondback terrapin getting ready to go to the NAAEE Conference, too!!  It was no accident to hear him exclaim, “what a fine Carolina Critter!” 

You can meet the terrapin and his friends the bumble bee, red-cockaded woodpecker, narrow-mouthed toad and many more when you visit the “Welcome to North Carolina” exhibit at the Raleigh Convention Center, Oct 12-14. What is really cool is that you can take the Carolina Critters home with you permanently and share them with friends and students. Once they settle into their new surroundings, they required very little care and thrive on marvel and will delight for many moons to come. Adoption fees are very affordable and go toward a great cause: Environmental Education!! Don’t miss meeting all of Tryon’s newest friends, Carolina Critters & Crafts.

My Busy Day at Brunson Elementary School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Wow!

What a busy day!  Elementary students in Winston-Salem sure learn many things. The class I visited has been studying animals, but not animals like me.  They've been studying invertebrates.  Boy were they excited to see a critter as complex and spine-toting as me! 

During the day I checked out some cookie crumbs set out to lure ants. The students were trying to determine what types of ants live on their school grounds as part of NC State University’s School of Ants global ant mapping project. The students found that more ants were attracted to the cookies on a grassy surface than on a paved surface.  Although the students found many kinds of ants, they will have to wait for the School of Ants analysis to see what species they caught. Those arthropods sure liked the cookies! Too bad the ants that were attracted to the cookies had to be sacrificed in the freezer before being mailed to NCSU.

We all know that students can't learn without a dedicated teacher. These kids have it made. Lara Overby is their teacher. She is also on the board of the Environmental Educators of North Carolina (EENC). It's pretty neat that these students are still in elementary school but are already contributing to an important science project at NCSU. This is a picture of Lara, with her statement about what she likes best about EENC.

After the tiring time outside with the ants, we came back into the classroom to read Bridge to Terabithia, their class novel. Everyone wanted me to read with them. 

You’d think they didn’t know that the Eastern box turtle was their state reptile. In fact, two of the students introduced me to a picture of my cousin Charlotte, another Eastern box turtle, in a field guide book.

The end of the day was the most exciting part. We had recess! I got to play zombie tag and go down the slide. We also played a new game called Turtle, Turtle, Tryon that was similar to Duck, Duck, Goose. I felt very honored that the students created a special game just for me.

Then I met the principal who was covering for the crossing guard. He tried to look mean and scare me, but the students assured me that he was very helpful and kind. I thoroughly enjoyed being the Brunson Box Turtle.

I better get moving. I can't believe that the conference is starting next week. It hardly seems like any time has passed since I started my adventure in Raleigh at Artsplosure. 

My visit to the NC Center for the Advancement of Teaching

Tryon Turtle here. I wanted to drop you a few lines about my wonderful adventure with NCCAT. NCCAT as I found out is the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching and provides week long seminars for public school teachers to re-energize their love of learning. The seminar I visited took place in the NC mountains and was all about citizen science in the classroom. We visited Fairview Elementary where we tagged Monarch butterflies and hunted for ladybugs at their amazing outdoor classroom area. We ended our first day by looking at the ant diversity on NCCAT's campus using the School of Ants project.



The second day we traveled to Purchase Knob at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Purchase knob is a research station where we monitored the phenology of local tree species, examined the terrestrial invertebrate diversity, and searched for salamander species in what is considered to be the salamander capital of the world. Seeing all of the insects and salamanders sure did make me hungry. We ended our day with an introduction to bird banding with local bird bander Mark Hopey.




The next day we traveled to the bird banding station at Big Bald along the Appalachian Trail on the Tennessee border. We banded a variety of migratory birds, counted migrating raptors and finished our day by catching and banding a migrating Merlin. What an amazing day. I sure have learned a lot about citizen science, met some of North Carolina's fantastic teachers, and had a great time during my NCCAT seminar.

You can find more photos at flickr