Task One: Brief Service Learning Selection and Description

For my Service Learning Project I will be volunteering with the Alliance for the Great Lakes.  The program I'll be involved with is titled "Adopt-A-Beach," and it will involve taking responsibility for the care of a beach along Lake Michigan in the Milwaukee area.

Service Learning Components

To receive a grade for our Academic Service Learning, we have to complete four tasks.  Those tasks are as follows:

1. Pick a Service Learning agency, give a brief description of what it is they do, and tell what you'll be expected to do (Due February 7, 2013, worth 5 points).
2. Write a project proposal describing what you plan on learning, the background behind the organization that you chose to work with, and how your Service Learning project ties in with class (Due April 5, 2013, worth 10 points).
3. Write a final reflection project that covers yourself, your organization, and the experience (for me it's this blog!) (Due April 26th, 2013, worth 40 points).  When that's done, we have to do a peer review in which we look at five other reflections and write up what we think (Due May 3, 2013, worth 5 points).
4. While we volunteer we need to keep a log of hours volunteered.  If we do not turn it it we will not get credit for any of the other completed tasks. (Due May 7, 2013, worth 40 points).

I plan on blogging along with each task just to keep an accurate record of what's been done, and what I have yet to do.      

Ballroom Blitz

Today students from the class packed into UWM's Union's ballroom to learn all about the Academic Service Learning project that they signed up for.

When empty, the ballroom appears to be a nonthreatening and large open space:

Image from: http://www.continuumarchitects.com/htmdocs/portfolio/portfolio_item.php?id=1

Today however, the ballroom was packed to the brim and had more of an appearance like this:

Image from: http://capcityliberty.blogspot.com/2010/11/youth-social-justice-forum-gets.html

The different participating organizations set up throughout the ballroom with displays that explained the missions of their organization.

Alliance for the Great Lakes was tucked in the back right-hand corner, and I was able to find it after a little searching.  Unfortunately, the Milwaukee area representative for the Alliance for the Great Lakes, Todd Brennan, could not attend the event, so our discussion was lead by the program director for the Center for Community Based Learning, Leadership, and Research.  She was able to explain to us that we would be broken into groups, with each group responsible for the clean up and monitoring of a Milwaukee area beach.  We will have a mandatory training in March that will tell us more.

Great Lakes Lovin'

When I was in elementary school my family took a skiing trip to the Porcupine Mountains. While there, I had my breath taken away by my first Great Lake, Lake Superior.

Image from: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/superior/lsm_map2.jpg

After seeing such an incredibly large and awe-inspiring body of water, I was hooked.  I wanted to know more about these "inland oceans" and I wanted to see them all.  Later in my life I was fortunate to venture off to see all of the other lakes.  Some got more enjoyment than others.

For example, Lake Huron was viewed from the terrifying Mackinac Bridge:

Image from: http://www.lakelubbers.com/blog/2011/04/april-newsletter-worlds-10-largest-lakes/mackinac-bridge-2/

Unfortunately there's no image from my trip over the bridge, I'm 99.9% sure I was white knuckling the grab handle on my side of the car for the entire duration of its crossing.

Lake Erie and I also had a rather brief encounter.  My mom and I were on a road trip that went through Cleveland, Ohio, home of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.  We stopped there, and it just so happened that the museum sat right next to Lake Erie.

Image from: http://english11noors.blogspot.com/

My first real view of Lake Ontario came upon a visit to a friend in Toronto, whose fabulous apartment had views of the city's downtown and Lake Ontario.

My heart belongs to Lake Superior though, and multiple trips have taken place because of that love.  Whether it was just in Duluth visiting:

Or in the Upper Peninsula backpacking:

Don't fret though, my love for Lake Superior does have a rival, the one lake that I have yet to mention...

Lake Michigan!

Image from: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lake_Michigan_Landsat_Satellite_Photo.jpg

Moving to Milwaukee in 2008 was difficult for me.  It was the largest city that I had ever lived in, and I came here not really knowing anyone or anywhere.  Even as a stranger I felt at home though when I walked a block from my apartment and saw Lake Michigan.  While trying to find my footing in a new city I could always just walk a bit and see a familiar friend.  Over the years I have moved even closer to the lake, and I have never once taken it for granted that on my walk to the bus and my walks to work I'm lucky to be able to take all of its beauty in.

Over the past five years I've been able to enjoy all of the recreational benefits of living near Lake Michigan and its beaches.  

Nice walks along the beach in the spring and fall

Snowshoeing in the winter

And fishing in the summer (no westies were fished in the making of this photo)

Now I have been presented a chance to give back to Lake Michigan what it has given to me.  For my Academic Service Learning component of my Conservation and Environmental Sciences course I have registered to volunteer with Alliance for the Great Lakes.  With the Alliance I will be volunteering for their Adopt-a-Beach program, an opportunity that allows for the monitoring and clean up of a beach along Lake Michigan. 

A Little About Me

You've already seen why this blog exists, and soon enough you'll get to follow me along on my adventure through Service Learning.  But before all of that you should probably get acquainted with me. 

My name is Halley and I'm a senior graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Biology in May, 2013.  My main research interest while at UWM has been in microbiology, and I have been fortunate in my time here to be able to participate in undergraduate research for both credit and payment via grant money by the Office of Undergraduate Research and the National Science Foundation.   Even luckier for me was that in my time here I was able to help on research that lead to a publication in the Journal of Bacteriology (Rhodes, R.G., H.G. Pucker and M.J McBride. 2011. Development and use of a gene deletion strategy for Flavobacterium johnsoniae to identify the redundant gliding motility genes remF, remG, remH andremI. J. Bacteriol. 193(10):2418-2428.) 

My time in classes and lab have helped me to discover two things:
1. I miss being outdoors (Seriously, being cooped up in a lab during the summer can drive a girl crazy!)
and
2. If I'm going to be stuck in a lab, I want to be somehow helping the environment which I so dearly miss while being cooped up

It is due to my ambition for the outdoors that I would like to pursue environmental microbiology for post undergraduate work.  I fell in love with water testing and everything wrapped up in it thanks to my Public Health Microbiology course and Environmental Microbiology course, and if that's the route that I end up taking, so be it.

Aside from my academic life, I also enjoy:

Being outdoors/backpacking/hiking

Reading nerdy books

And hanging out with my little white dog

Hopefully this blog will be an excellent trip in getting to know me!