holiday

Our first weekend was a great chance to explore Taipei. Some of us tried out various stops on the local transit system, called the MRT. We wandered the streets of the city and it's many markets. And some of us (ok, just one of us) finally took his first big bike ride around the fantastic network of bike paths that connect the city.

One highlight was meeting up with some new friends. Vicky, Jakie and Bill, who we connected with through some friends in the states, volunteered to guide us through some awesome experiences including a hot pot meal ("eat to die" or all you can eat!), a 24 hour bookstore, a traditional Taiwanese breakfast and Longshan Temple.

Lastly, they took us to a nearby town directly east of Taipei called Jiufen. We spent about 45 minutes on the bus to get there, and we were enchanted by the old mining town and its narrow winding streets. We spent much of the afternoon drinking tea in a teahouse perched on the side of the mountain. In this picture you can see the balcony where we sat looking out over the view.

Our peaceful experience in Jiufen was a great compliment to the pace of the big city. Now we're back to work, planning away for summer camps. But we're already looking forward to our next holiday adventure!

6/26/10 Dinner in Guandu

Hungry after a long meeting to debrief the Workshop and plan for Summer Camps we all went out for dinner in Guandu. We chose a small resturaunt where you place an assortment of tofu, meat, eggs and veggies in your basket and they cook it all up in a soup.

The man at the counter asked how spicy we wanted our soup by pointing to a thermometer. Several of us chose a level of spice half way up the thermometer or higher. Fast forward to 20 minutes later...we are all sweating, Zach is cooling off with a cola, Ali is chugging water and Hillary swears that her mouth is rub from the spices!

It was so HOT! Erin and Hillary got smart and began spooning the spice (bright red oil) from their soup! It was then we noticed that the restaurant was decorated with colorful flames. Zach pointed out that we must work on our skills of observation!

After dinner we walked to a tiny grocery store and bought some ice cream to cool our throats. Zach and Ali discovered that red bean ice milk (ice cream bar with sweet red beans) is pretty good!

Teacher Workshop Day #2

Day two began in the auditorium with Hillary leading "Decomposers" and Zach leading "Food-Chain." Without our usually costumes we had to call upon our interpretive movement skills to portray the producer (Erin), prey (Mike), predator (Ali) and decay (Zach)!

The morning sessions focused on how to use art in outdoor education. Hillary lead Solo Walk Poetry and encountered a few teaching challenges: helpful students picking up the cards, rainy weather and lack of time. Erin lead Sound Maps and later received a compliment from a student for creating a safe environment to be creative. Zach and Mike team taught Perspective Stories for half of the group, while Ali taught the other half. Many unique stories and poems were recited, mostly in Chinese! Including stories about cicadas, crabs, paper mulberry trees and rhinoceros beetles!

We were delighted to discover that the "box" lunches prepared at Guandu Nature Park are served in individual stainless steel lunch containers, which are washed and reused! No paper or plastic waste!

The afternoon sessions focused on thematic learning. We choose to focus on birds, with a local bird Each-One Teach-One (E1T1), Bird Beak Buffet and Mystery Bird "Who am I?" has the main lessons. Several students impressed Hillary and Erin with their creative presentations during E1T1. Bird Beak Buffet had several folks giggling as the watched their peers crawl around trying to "eat" bird food (litchi seeds and beans, etc.) with clothes pin "beaks." Laughter was also heard during Mystery Bird "Who am I?" has students scrambled to collect clues!


The workshop ended with another reflection, discussion and question session. Several students shared that they enjoyed IslandWood's philosophy of taking the time to debrief activities and reflect. The workshop was a success! For the students and us! We all greatly enjoyed the opportunity to share what we've learned at IW over here in TW.

Teacher Workshops Day 1

We jumped right into our teacher workshops at Guandu Nature Park today. Sixty teachers and instructors from other nature centers came from all over Taiwan to participate. We began the day by showing a powerpoint of IslandWood in the auditorium, then split into 4 groups: the Cattle Egrets, Herons, Kingfishers, and Bulbuls (all common birds at Guandu). We all did name games (some groups did nature names and we have some 'unique' ideas such as Squid, Sunflower, and Bacteria) and the game "All my Friends". Frogs were hopping and snails slid across the grass as participants incorporated truly biotic items into our Nature's ABCs activity. We modeled a mind map (What is an Ecosystem?) and did the Web of Life. It was fun to see these activities done in such a unique place; children at IslandWood normally don't offer "rice" or "water lily" as a part of their ecosystem!

After breaking the lunch hour, we broke back into our 4 groups. Mike and Erin led groups in team-building activities (as a means to teach ecosystems).





Hillary, Zach and Ali led 2 rousing games of Owls, Mice and Seeds. OMS was a hit - an old man was observed running so fast that his combover flapped in the wind, and some mice chose to divebomb their seeds. The crash of the ecosystem (seeds disappeared first, followed shortly by mice and then owls) made a great debrief.

6/22/10

After a much needed full night’s sleep, we woke up ready for the day. After a breakfast that included fresh fruit from the fruit stand down the street, we headed to Guandu Nature Park. We were introduced to more of their staff members and then taken around the park. They took us to the constructed wetland, where we geared up into the ‘frog suits.’ We then went off path, into the depths of the wetland and rice fields. This incredible adventure concluded with some chest deep water and water buffalos.

We were treated to a lunch prepared by the restaurant at the nature center which included rice, chicken, cabbage, soup, and other deliciousness. Our afternoon was spent preparing and planning for the summer camp programs. As representatives of Islandwood, we are in charge of planning the activities for an English language summer camp program that will be happening next week. We will be working with the staff and volunteers to adapt our activities to the Guandu Nature Park’s program. This exciting process allowed us to brainstorm with each other and their staff on how to accomplish this challenging task. In the last few days everyone that we have met has been incredibly welcoming and incredibly kind to us. We are excited to working with everyone in making this program as successful as possible.

Arrival Day Afternoon

In the afternoon we took the train to Taipei. Jean walked us around the city before taking us to the National Taiwan Normal University. At the University we met several of the facility and graduate students and were given a tour of their sustainable campus. This included a constructed wetland that treats their wastewater and a green roof. After the tour, we gave a group of graduates and facility a presentation about Islandwood’s graduate program. We then socialized for a bit before heading back on the train. During our time at the University it began to pour rain with a bit of thunder and lightning. It continued as we walked to the train station armed with borrowed umbrellas.

Arrival Morning

Our flight began at 2 AM on Sunday 8/20/10 but due to the 15 hour time difference we arrived at around 5 AM on 8/21/10. The 13 hour flight was long but manageable with lots of sleep, food, and a personal touch screen television at each seat.

We were picked up at the airport, where a driver waited for us, holding up a sign with “Islandwood.” He drove us to our new apartment in the Guandu neighborhood where we were greeted warmly by our host, Jean. He showed us around the neighborhood and to our apartment. We then went to the Guandu Nature Park. The park was gorgeous, with endless wetlands, wildlife everywhere, and stunning interpretive nature center. The beauty of the park helped us adjust to the warm, humid heat. We were then treated to a meal of pork, rice, cabbage, and other vegetables that helped energize us for an eventful afternoon.

Check out my picture gallery for more pictures from the trip.

http://mikehancock.smugmug.com/Taiwan

the Adventure Begins

Erin is in Malaysia,

Ali is in Eastern Washington,

Zach is on Vancouver Island,

Mike is on Bainbridge

and Hillary is in Seattle.

It's hard to believe that the five of us will be coming together in just a few short days to begin our adventure in Taiwan! We are headed to Guandu Nature park, a wetland outside of Taipei, for a month of living, learning and teaching with the Guandu Team.

At the moment we have many questions: will it be too hot to play owls mice and seeds? Which bird species will join us for our Each One Teach One? How much English can a seven year old Taiwanese child understand? Stay tuned as we figure out the answers.

What a wonderful challenge- to teach place-based education in a VERY new place!