Heading Home

Today we head home.  Following breakfast, we met in the education building for a reflection of our trip.  Clearly our kids were grateful to our field instructors Jacob and Dion for all they did this week.  They were among the best we have had in our years of doing these trips.  We made a trip into Jackson for a quick check of the local farmer's market and pizza lunch Jacob suggested we make a quick stop at the Wildlife Art Museum before heading to the airport.  It is an amazing place that we only had time to check out quickly, but I'm glad the kids had a chance to see some of it.  Thanks to all the parents who trusted us with your kids this week.  After they catch up on some sleep, I hope they have many stories to tell you about what they experienced and learned this week.

 

 

Research and Reflection

 

 

This morning was one of the most important of all our days. We had to go hike a couple of miles of trails to go research Pikas. We hiked in the Death Canyon. We all heard Pika but one of our groups did see one, and only one. Then we left our spots after two or three times of researching. The next spot we went to had some of the Pika calling back and forth to each other but they were not able to be seen. After a round of researching we had to keep moving to get to the van before it rained. When we got back to campus we did the final cleaning of hoorahs and we cleaned the van. Then we unpacked our packs and then went to the outfitter and returned the stuff we needed for hiking and then did a equipment check. Now I am waiting to go have dinner. Then we will celebrate the great week we had together and go to sleep for the last time in these Wyoming bed and in the next morning we will finish packing and say good bye to that Wyoming air.  

           -Jordan Martin-

 

Hello. This is Brendan Massar writing for Morgan Wilson Rachel Mencer and Maddie Swope. Obviously they didn't want to write this, so I am doing it for them. We started the day early and drove to death canyon. We began our perilous hike down to the boulder fields where we began our search for the elusive Pika. A pika is a Lagomorph, and it is related to rabbits and hares. However it looks more like a tailless mouse. We sat in our groups (four groups comprised of three people each!and began to scope, time and record. At first only one group saw some Pika, but by the third experiment my group saw one as well. To be fair, only I saw it but I digress. Then a storm rolled in, so we said, "Allons-y!" (which means come along in French) and went back to the school. Dion graciously told us about his research in geology. Then as a special treat we polished off our regular activities with some more action on the low ropes course, which we did really well on. Then Cameron, Morgan, Willem and I decided to end the night with a game of soccer. Yet as we were playing we noticed dark shapes moving towards us.a moose had entered our camp. We cleared everyone in to a path and I went to find someone with Bear Spray (which is like a super strong pepper spray) but luckily we didn't need it. The moose went through our camp not even taking notice at the large group of people who had gathered to see the moose mother and her calf. After that minor fiasco, we decided to play apples to apples with the "creative and talented youth" club who had arrived that day. Then we got to bed early for our long day of travel ahead.

This is Brendan Massar, writing for other people, signing off from Jackson Wyoming for the last time.

 

 

 

Phleps Lake

 

 

 

 

 

Not a pika but kept us company on the talus field.

 

Compiling research data on the porch.

 

 

Return to low ropes as part of our reflection.

                                                                  Cow moose and calf walking through campus the last night.

Stewardship and Low Ropes

Today on our journey we learned about some types of plants that were not native to the Americas. The English brought the seeds of these plants in dirt which they used to help from not making the boat flip over in the ocean. The reason I told you this because that was the field we had on the morning of our day. Our group learned of all the three plants we mainly had to look for. The one of the plants was a musk thistle. It is jaggy and a pretty purple flower and another one which has a seed that sticks to your clothes like glue. We were at the original Teton science school (Kelly campus). We were put to work to kill the plants. When we were finished killing the plants we had lunch and drove back to campus. After we had time to clean hoorahs and change into better clothes. We worked with Dion and Jacob on some challenge course and then we played some goofy games and now I have to go to eat dinner.

    -Jordan Martin-

Today was a exciting day at Kelly Campus. We helped out the national park by pulling invasive plants that hurt the native plants. A few invasive species are houndstounge, musk thistle, western salsify. These plants were killing the native plants so we volunteered to pull as many invasive plants as we could. After a hard day of work we had lunch at the Kelly Campus School. Then we came back to TSS and did 5 tricky games that taught us different team building techniques. Some of those techniques being things like communication, body language, and cooperation from everybody. Then we finished up a great day at the ropes courses and had a nice dinner. Then we finished up the night with a intro to pika research with one of our TSS leaders, Jacob. Today was a wonderful and exciting day in the Teton Mountains.

     -Evan  

Bison Herd

Doe mule deer and two fawns crossed in front of us.

Instruction from the National Park on which invasive species to get rid of.

 

Invasive houndstougue.

 

 

Invasive western salsify.

 

Working at the Kelly campus of TSS.

 

 

 

 

Preparing for tomorrow's pika research.