Contemplation Script

Image yourself in a serene environment. This environment takes place in the middle of a wooded area. Vast trees, fifty to one hundred feet tall, surround the entire area. Sunlight is barely visible, due to the shade provided by the mass of trees. However, a few rays of sun manage to peek through openings left between leaves. The location is not entirely darkened, yet is a quite dim. The dimness causes a sense of relaxation, as opposed to being much too bright which may provoke excitement.

When you look to the ground, you see there is not much grass. Instead, there is rich, dark brown soil all around. Various fallen branches and leaves add to the mix of the earth on which you stand atop. There is not much else due to the lack of major sunlight, leaving little able to grow on the ground. The beautiful trees, tall and proud, make up for the lack of other plant life. The trunks of these trees are large in circumference, and also are bare until about a third of the way up the tree. At that point, long branches covered in classic green leaves protrude outward, slightly tilting in varied directions. This area does not have much, but it doesn’t need it. For when it comes to nature, quality is over quantity.

On Friday, the 29^th, we took a visit to the Aullwood Audubon Center and Farm. I personally found the trip to be quite enjoyable and intriguing. I loved learning about the plants and insects I had not been aware of before. For example, the mass amount of larvae of all kind residing in the unnoticed areas of the ponds. Obviously I knew they existed, it’s just the thought of all that was lurking in the waters that I could not see from an average perspective had not often occurred to me. The instructor my group had, Ms. Pat, was very kind and well informative. I was fortunate enough to take a closer look at a couple of birds through the utilization of binoculars provided for us all, allowing me to get a better look at the florescent, brilliant colors of these birds. But, a creature I was able to get an even closer look at was a snake. In fact, I was able to hold this snake in my hands myself, which was such an amazing experience for me since I honestly find snakes so interesting. I would not have minded seeing a few more snakes that day. But it’s alright because I was able to hold another reptile almost as interesting. They were box turtles, and frankly, they were adorable. Viewing all the natural land I had that day was so lovely. There is so much beauty in nature that most tend to disregard. It’s always nice to get outside for a while and fully appreciate that beauty, and that is precisely what I had done during our trip. Eventually, we headed down to the farm to see the farm animals. The farm that I witnessed were goats, horses, pigs, chickens, rabbits, sheep, and turkeys. The goats in particular were incredibly friendly and easy to pet. All in all, it was a very good day and I would love to experience another day similar to it.

A rabbit from the Aullwood Farm

Today, we took a trip to Cox Arboretum. We went after we finished up a few things from the day before. These things included finishing up a Hersey Kiss activity where we were required to intricately describe a Hersey Kiss through all five senses and then put our description into a booklet shaped like the candy itself. It also included finishing up a blog post from the day prior to this one, since our yoga session had gone longer than expected and we had no time to start off our new post. Even if we had yet to finish up these tasks entirely, we all had to leave to Cox Arboretum. Once we arrived there, we all had freedom to walk around anywhere we would like. However, there was a scavenger hunt assigned to us prior to our arrival. The scavenger hunt included taking an image of five different trees and at least one creature (not a human being). We had to take a close up image of the bark, then a close up of the leaves, then the entire tree. We all met back up with the rest of our Into the Woods members around noon. Soon after meeting up, we grabbed our yoga mats and laid them atop the grass, preparing for another yoga session. After yoga, it was time to pack up and go back to the school. We utilized our remaining time we had at school by finishing up anything we had yet to finish, which included our post for today. 

A photograph taken during our yoga session at Cox Arboretum

Yesterday, on the 27th, we started off the day with a reading titled “Take a Closer Look” by Tom Brown Jr. Once we read it, we discussed it and along with it came an adapted from the reading. The activity we had to do was to literally take a closer look into a square foot spot of our choice in a natural setting. The activity was called “Small World”. Taking a closer look into our small world of nature included recording detailed observations from two different perspectives. One perspective was from a standing position and the other was from a kneeling position. We also were encouraged to lie all the way down on our stomachs and appreciate the area from that perspective, but recording an analysis was not required. What I had recorded of my small world from the standing perspective was a patch of land with the upper right corner bordered by two rocks. The patch of land consisted of grass, clovers, and a few white wild flowers strewn about the area. From a kneeling perspective I definitely could see a bit more details I had not noticed from a standing position. I noticed small pieces of broken off bark, some blades of dead, yellowed grass, and I noticed minuscule holes bitten into the leaves of some of the clovers. Where we had gone to make this observations was Delco Park, which we all had traveled to on foot. Below is a photograph taken by a few of my friends and myself enjoying our time at Delco Park on such a lovely day.

Today, we were further introduced to what our STEMmersion, Into the Woods, was going to entail. We started the class off with a discussion of a quote by Henry Thoreau, which was “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.” We discussed what we felt the meaning of living deliberately was to us and shared with the class. After that, we all read an excerpt from “Looking Around” by Anne Lamott and once again discussed with the class any thoughts we had about the reading. In order to get to know each other better, we all traced our hand onto a piece of paper and on each finger wrote one thing about our self. We went around with our paper and introduced ourselves to one another, having each person we introduced ourselves to sign our paper. After that activity, each of us received a syllabus and briefly went over it, so we all knew what to expect in order to prepare for this STEMmersion. One thing we needed to prepare was our blogs we are required to update daily, so we all set up our blogs and were able to customize them a bit. We then split into two and completed a team activity where we were given four small, wooden boards. With these boards, we had to get our entire team from one point to another, stepping only on the boards. An image of this activity is provided below.

 Soon after, a guest speaker, Scott Geisel, came to speak with us about nature writing. He explained to us what nature writing was and the importance of making our writing detailed enough for the reader to be able to visualize, in their own minds, what we were describing. He also talked of the major parts of nature writing, which were observation, meaning, and delivery. After he was done speaking, we had a recess break outside followed by lunch. Once lunch was over, we went into the gym along with our yoga mats, in preparation to do yoga. Unfortunately, something came up for our yoga instructor and she was unable to come teach us. Instead, we came up with some rules and expectations to follow during the course of Into the Woods. To end the day, we just simply went back to the classroom we began in and started to write our blog post for the day.