Summer Camp

The kids arrived armed with their overnight gear plus an impressive amount of sunscreen, mosquito repellent and sun hats. They promptly got dirty, bug bitten, sweaty and sunburned. So we think that means that camp was pretty successful.

Overnight camp at Guandu is a three day affair. We (the instructors) decided to begin each day with a Friendship Circle and where we acted out skits, sang songs and taught vocabulary.

From there we broke out into our five teams, Stream, Forest, Estuary, Pond and Marsh, for a fun filled day of activities and games. With over eight hours of teaching time on our first day we all taught the Nature’s ABCs and had plenty of time left over for team building, games, ecosystem explorations and solo experiences… and always more games!

We found that our kids had a wide range of knowledge about the English language. Some were reticent to speak in English for the entire three days, while others were completely fluent. We gave kids the option to write and share in English or Chinese and our chaperones were often a huge help when it came to instructions. But in a culture where cram schools (after school study programs) are the norm, kids are ready for the challenge. Notably, Ali had a couple of students who were so eager to learn new words, they were memorizing latin names of birds and spelling them back to her.

Skit night was outrageous! Erin and Ali started the evening off with the Banana Bandana Skit and had kids howling with laughter. There were hilarious renditions of Penguin Company, the Banana Song and the Soup Skit which featured Zach playing an old lady and Mike playing a paramedic… musical style.

Camp came to a close with family sharing time, for which kids chose to present their drawings, perspective stories, and soundmaps, not to mention bird nests they made and a clamshell version of the Decomposer Song. Seeing many of our kids who were so shy at the beginning of they week stand up and bravely share in English was a wonderful way to close.

At the moment, we are teaching family camps and gearing up for our last week of summer camp… and our last week in Taiwan. With so many intense experiences and hilarious moments under our belts, this is going to be a hard place to leave.

A trip to Nantou County

Our wonderful friends Justina and YuChi arranged a trip for us to go to Nantou County on our weekend before our first summer camp began.
We travelled warp-speed on the high-speed train (speeds up to about 130mph) from Taipei Main Station to Taijung, in the very heart of the Island. Time: 58 minutes!



We were picked up by our ambitious and enthusiastic host for the weekend, Chia-Cheng. He took us immediately to a paper museum where we learned how paper is traditionally made out of rice pulp. Then, we got the chance to make paper ourselves!




Professor Cho (however, NOT in attendance) from Taiwan Normal University wanted to host us for a meal, so we ate a delicious feast for lunch in his honor. We also had the most intriguing basil-seed concoction, suspiciously resembling frog eggs.



Our next destination was to Sun-Moon Lake. We hiked a short but steep trail down to the lake's edge, stopping along the way to learn about Taiwan's ecology from our very own host/naturalist.



We also hiked up to a Pagoda, with beautiful views of the lake and surrounding mountains. The building is normally open to the public, but damage from an earthquake this year made it closed to visitors.




Chia-Cheng took us to a quaint little village nestled in the foothills of the mountains. We stopped at the local laundry facility, a natural spring where the women wash their clothes the traditional way. It was great to cool down and ease our weary feet.



We survived the long, windy road down the mountain and back into the city, to the home of our host where we spent the night. We were greeted by their family and an enormous meal! It was delicious.



Chia-Cheng had planned for us to do "frog observations" that evening, but we were SO tired that we headed upstairs to our beds - so early that the cheesecake was STILL in the oven and our hosts were still preparing our sleeping area. Not only had he planned a late-night activity, but he wanted to take us around his neighborhood at 6am the next morning. I said he was ambitious! Hillary was the only one that woke up early - 7:30ish - but by that time we were told that it was too late (thus too hot) to go out. So, what else to do than eat cheesecake for breakfast!

Despite the heat, after breakfast we took a walk around the neighborhood, and toured some of the local farmland.



We hopped back into the car and took a driving tour through the most amazing farm country - rice, bananas, dragonfruit, pineapple - it makes me hungry just thinking about it! He took us to a beautiful lookout of the surrounding countryside.



A local always knows the best places to eat, and Chia-Cheng took us to the locally 'famous' noodle shop in the town market.



And then cold meatballs in jelly!



We travelled to a conservation center where we learned about the flora and fauna of Taiwan. Such incredible biodiversity!



Our next destination was to a logging museum/theme park (?) up in the mountains. We overcame a variety of team challenges, including making a train car move, putting a wooden puzzle together, and a group walk!





We raced back to the high-speed train and made it just in time. Whew, what a fun and exhausting whirlwind trip!

Permaculture in Taiwan

7/3- Although it was a difficult decision, I (Zach) chose to forgo the trip to Nantou County with the rest of the group. The alternative was a day trip to a nearby farming community for a tour of an extensive permaculture operation. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to observe some environmentally-conscious agriculture with a Taiwanese twist.

I was fortunate enough to catch a ride with our friend Gene, who is part of the education staff at Guandu. His wife and 18 month-old son rounded out the group, and we left Taipei headed southeast toward Pinglin. As I soon discovered, the tour was also a gathering of members of Taiwan’s permaculture society. We began by gathering in the home of the man who operates the farm. Unfortunately, he does not own the land, because unlicensed farmers are only able to lease. He welcomed us with word and song, and although I could not understand his language, I was able to understand that his connection and commitment to the Earth are intensely powerful. Later, via translation, I learned that he often spoke of exposing his body, mind, and spirit to the sun, soil, and rain that dominates the Taiwanese landscape. Indeed, he is always barefoot, despite working with heavy hand tools and living on a farm where the sun often heats the soil to very high temperatures.

We walked the farm, learning about his work to integrate nature and agriculture. No huge field of manicured row crops here. His deep knowledge of plants that complement each other has allowed him to mix fields of, for example, beans with burdock root and ginger. His bamboo orchard was interspersed with papaya and banana. The land is truly a beautiful blending of native plants and agricultural crops which serves as a rich bird and animal habitat. Our lunch was made exclusively from the variety of crops that we harvested in the morning. After our lunch, we harvested peanuts and bamboo shoots in the intense mid-day heat, and assisted in a laborious digging project.

We ended our day with tea, discussion, and song. Although I was clearly not from Taiwan, and was only able to communicate through motions and smiles, I felt entirely welcomed into this community of people. It was good to experience the wonder and harmony of small-scale farming in Taiwan. This day demonstrated to me that there are people all over the world who are willing to work with intention in order to preserve our connection and balance with the Earth.

-Zach Gayne

Friday Holiday!

7/2/10- The last week was spent planning for our summer camp programs. After a busy week of planning our weekend started on Friday afternoon. In the afternoon we took a bus up north to an area called Bali to go to the Waziwei Nature Reserve. This riverside wetland reserve was on the Danshui River, just south of the Ocean. We walked around the Mangrove forest to the beach where we crab watched. We then took a small boat across the river to Danshui. We walked along the waterfront and then to the street market to sample lots of food and teas. The evening ended with the sunset on the water and dinner at a Cafe.

I've posted lots of new pictures from the trip

http://mikehancock.smugmug.com/Taiwan

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.