In spite of all odds, the MIC Project begins

Debriana and Wendy after we collected caterpillars in the heat

As I have told my colleague many times, teaching should not be this hard. Getting a project going should not be this hard.
I am not referring to the effort at making plans to teach and delivering the many forms and vicissitudes of instruction. That kind of hard work is expected and often exhilarating and what keeps me at it each day.

I am referring to the unnecessary hard work of getting the resources needed and personnel engaged to teach and, in this case, to carry out the MIC project. I tried to get audience with the principals of the Madison County School District to present my project so that I could get the twenty four teams of three students and one adult sponsor from the Madison County School District schools. The superintendent suggested a mass email to the principals since they had a packed agenda. The is what I did. Then some genius in Nigeria or somewhere managed to hack my email and it got shut down for the two weeks prior to the project. In spite of my filling out work orders and sending emails to important people from my other email account and going to my principal, my school email and main means of communication for the project was still not working on the day the project began. To complicate things further two schools that I tried to contact did not work out. Further there were no more POs allowed after noon on Monday before my project so I had to improvise for some supplies which involved returning some items and doing other creative exchanges and purchases.

So Saturday arrived, three plots were marked in the woods for collection caterpillars, the food for lunch was purchased, a student was asked to run the equipment for the presentations and, most importantly, our indomitable janitor was hired to open everything up and to cook the hot dogs for lunch.

As I drove up an hour before starting time the mentor for the project, Dr. Richard Brown, turned in the school drive from the other direction at the same time. Off to a good start. Mr. Day, the janitor showed up and then a student from the middle school and before it was over four of my teacher colleagues all showed up on time and ready. Nine of the eighteen students from Velma arrived at various times, another student from the middle school and three from the elementary and the projectionist.

Dr. Brown brought some awesome samples of butterflies and caterpillars to put on the lobby table and hooked people's interest right away.





His presentation was excellent and when he gets permisssions I will post it on the wikipage. After we got the paperwork straight and instructions given, we went into the woods to collect caterpillars. Here are the teams:
Ms. Curette, Ms. Towner, Ariel, Fred, Wendy, Kenya
Michelle, Ms. Dickerson, Afrika, Kierra(second row), Jamaica, Jaylen, Brittany
Mr. Hamblin, Michael, Anthony, Ms. Taylor, Debrianna, Lonnie


Two Velma Jackson supporters let us use their land right across the street for the MIC Project. They were not home but let us come anyway. We walked past a pond, through a golf course that he is developing, through a cow pasture and through an open field to the three plots marked for the project. Here are some of the teams at work:





The best news is we were successful and several commented on how much fun science is and how this is what science should be - hands on, minds on.

Here are some of the caterpillars:





We got back to regroup and someone had locked up the hot dog buns for lunch so we were delayed but one of the teachers, MS. Dickerson, who just one a NIssan Grant for her local culture clas, printed out butterflies on her commuter and had the kids coloring as we waited and others got to discuss the project.

All in all it was a very successful day with a lot of learning taking place - great quality though far short of the 96 person quantity planned for.