To continue from yesterday...

...while our focus going in was to be learning something about the community, I feel like we did learn some things about event organization over the past few weeks. Some "donts," if you will, courtesy of the Project 2011 people.
1. In the weeks leading up to the event, the Project 2011 organizers sent a series of e-mail imploring volunteers to carpool and take the offered buses only as a last resort due to a limited number of seats. Then, suddenly, the night before the event, the organizers changed their tune and sent out an e-mail saying they had 100 or 200 seats on buses and they weren't sure if there would be sufficient parking for people at the various worksites. Thus, after weeks of DON'T TAKE THE BUS! the message switched to TAKE THE BUS! which I found rather annoying.
2. Signage at Lanier High School was confusing. They had volunteers with large, neon arrows all over the place on the school grounds, and a few poorly conceived signs off of Lamar (northbound only). It was confusing because they had people stationed at various places at the school just to tell you that those were not the right places to go. So after pulling over because you saw volunteers, they'd tell you to keep going, but you wouldn't have pulled over if you hadn't seen volunteers.
3. Some e-mails in the early days after signing up indicated that registration/bus pick-up would be at UT, without specifying the location further. I thought that was pretty funny.
4. Given the general lack of community engagement, I wonder if the Americorps people or whoever made any attempt to engage the local community. I'd really like to ask them, but I don't know how to do so without being passive-aggressive.

Project 2011 Volunteering

Yesterday, three of my classmates and I ventured forth from our cozy beds on a dreary Saturday for what we hoped would be some community-building volunteerism. Bolstered by some carbs and saturated fats from delicious breakfast tacos, we set off into the mist for Lanier High School. After arriving at the school, despite the best efforts of whoever was in charge of signage for the event, our hopes of community-building (i.e. interacting with the parents of kids at Dobies) were all but dashed. The school was simply overrun with members of the Greek community--not from Greece, but seemingly hundreds of UT Greek Life's finest.
Thus, we decided to simply suck the marrow out of the afternoon anyway, hording granola bars, bottled water, and the ever-coveted free T-shirt, as we dug in the dirt of the flowerbeds in front of Dobie, delicately at first, and then with increasing vigor as the middle school's band played a couple of songs for us. Unfortunately, that seemed to be the only sign I saw of any actual "local" support for the day's activities. Nonetheless, amidst the occasional squealing at the sight of particularly hideous-looking bugs and the incessant bad jokes, the four of us managed to enjoy ourselves despite the feeling that we were going to leave without what we had come for.

The Joy of Curriculum

...is a little different than the joy of cooking.
So far this semester, I've been so busy doing to get this event squared away, that it's been hard to find time to keep reading. But read I have, mostly getting a crash course in curriculum development, to bookend Explore UT with lessons/activities related to some of the events on the day. And this afternoon, I submit the product of those labors for consideration.

Proposed Curriculum Schedule

Week of Feb. 7th: Calm before the storm.
Week of Feb 14th: Marine Biology Day. Guest speaker: ? Perhaps someone from the biology department at UT, who could then meet up with the kids at Explore UT at the touch tank exhibit.? Brief review of food chain concepts. Activity: Balanced Ecosystem Spoons game. Ask students what the effect of removing various creatures from a coral reef ecosystem would be. Conclude with brief discussion of the impact of human activity on marine ecosystems. Connect to marine touch tank at Explore UT.
Week of Feb 21nd: International Day. Guest speaker: Us! to talk about our various cultural backgrounds and experiences. Invite kids to share their own. Activity: dancing to debka music or other folk dances, eating a snack from another country, brief language lesson in a language spoken by one of us, but not the kids. Connect to international festival at Explore UT.
Week of Feb 28th: Nutrition and Fitness Day. Brief overview of food pyramid/recommended number of servings of various types of food (probably just a quick handout). Guest speaker: UT student-athlete (TBA) to talk about the importance of healthy diet and exercise. Activity: Nutritional Budgeting? And/or put together healthy lunch for Explore UT Day from three or four choices of entree, side dish, and drink (choices TBA).
March 5th: Explore UT
Week of March 7th: De-briefing from Explore UT. Let kids talk about their favorite parts (possibly go through pictures). Special Guest: UT member of Mexican American Association of Pharmacy students (TBA). Activity: blood pressure/heart rate?