Bowers Farm Update

Today in class, I checked in with my teacher to see if the representative from Bowers Farm had responded yet.  She had and I was pleasantly surprised by her reply.  I had been worried that I would be refused because of a fear that the bats could hurt students or because state laws would not permit it like at the IA.  However, I was completely wrong.  Bowers Farm refused my houses because they already had as many as they could handle!  Apparently, a few years ago, a boy did a similar project and installed at least a dozen houses throughout the farm.  Although I'm disappointed that I was unable to place my houses, I am happy that they have already been helping bats for years.  I learned that I shouldn't underestimate people's understanding of bats.  I'm often prone to thinking that nobody understands how important they are and that everyone fears them or thinks they are rats.  However, many people are aware of their usefulness and other positive attributes.

Bowers Farm

This week, I talked to my teacher about possibly hanging bat houses at Bowers School Farm, the educational farm just a few blocks from the International Academy.  With his help, I emailed the head of the farm and asked if it would be possible for one of my houses to find a home at her farm.  This would be great since my research has shown that bats prefer crop bugs and a bat house on the farm would prove beneficial for both the bats and the farm since bats are an environmentally friendly method of pest control.  Hopefully, I will hear back from her shortly.

November 24 and 25, 2012

This weekend, I began to paint my bat houses.  These houses will be home to breeding colonies of mother bats during the summer and they must keep very warm, almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit inside the bat house.  In order to do this, bat houses in cooler climates are painted black to absorb heat from the sun.  Because of higher temperatures due to global warming, it is not always advisable to do this.  However, in Michigan where I'll be hanging my houses, it is still recommended by the OBC that all bat houses are painted black with weather resistant latex paint.  I bought a small can of paint back in September with my dad and this weekend, he showed me how to paint making the least mess possible. We spread plastic sheeting and newspaper over his basement worktable and placed the houses on that.  Then, we painted one side and the back of each house.  Because the paint had to dry overnight,  the next day, Sunday, we flipped them over and painted the front and other side.  Then we put the lid back on the paint and wrapped the brushes in aluminum foil to store in the fridge until next weekend when we will put on the second coat of paint.  The cold of the fridge will keep the paint from drying since water will not evaporate out as quickly.

November 20, 2012 Photostory

I had a lot of trouble with my computer when completing this assignment, but after restarting my computer, I was able to complete it.  Here it is:

November 19, 2012 - Podcast

Here, finally, is my podcast in response to the Single Story TED Talk.  My IB Learner Profile video should be up shortly, although I've been having so many computer issues, that is not definite.  Despite having free reign on three computers, I am having difficulty making a good video which does not self delete as soon as I save it.  This is because the Widows Movie Maker on the two desktops at my house is the old version which replaces all pictures with large red Xs if it can't find them, which is always unless you have a memory key and have all files and things on that key.  It's incredibly unreliable, the product is not as good, the interface is irritating and confusing, and exporting the smallest video takes hours.  I would prefer to be using iMovie on the mac, but my laptop too is so old that it no longer has enough memory space to save pictures, let alone videos.  Each time I make my video there, it refuses to save, then glitches and won't even show the video.  This has never happened before, so I am hoping to have fixed the problem before I go to bed tonight.  Either way, I'm learning a lot about computer maintenance, programs, and quirks.

DTE

Today, I received a reply from the environmental planner at DTE.  She says that she is happy to help me, but did not understand the meaning of my request and wasn't sure whether I was offering my houses or asking if I could install them myself on one of their poles.  Either option is good for me, although it would probably be better for both of us if DTE could hang the houses since they have better equipment and also won't be liable if anything happens, unlike if I did it myself.  I said this to Ms. Urbani.  I really hope this works out!

Project Demo

In class, we recently had a project demonstration due in which we were supposed to explain our project, its progress and our interest in it.  I made a video full of pictures of me constructing my bat houses and it was shown on the overhead while I described it to the class.  The main thing that my teacher noticed about my presentation was that my pictures which showed me drilling on the floor since my dad's workbench is too high often included my bare feet.  He found this both amusing and something to be improved since he was worried that the sawdust could give splinters or that I could be injured in some other way since the work was dangerous enough for safety glasses.  I don't think that would be a big problem, but I will be sure to heed his advice as I continue to work on my bat houses.

This is the video I showed.  The pictures in it are the best of the ones I have taken so far and fairly well record my progress up to this point.

Contacting DTE

During class today, I contacted the environmental sector at DTE.  On their web page, DTE discusses the several causes that they support to better the environment.  One of the things they do is to hang bat houses on some of their electrical poles.  I used the contact us box at the bottom of the page to send an email asking them if they could find a place to put my houses as well.  I am not sure who received my message, but I hope whoever receives it takes it seriously and replies soon.  Here is the message I sent:

I am a sophomore at the International Academy in Bloomfield Hills.  I am currently working on an MYP project creating bat houses to hang in our community.  I saw on your website that you hang bat houses on some of your poles and I was wondering if I could hang mine as well.  Thank you for your consideration!

~Anne Wampler

October 19, 2012 - Goals

     For my personal project, I am studying bat houses and their benefits for both bats and humans.  I have been working at the OBC Bat Zone for several years and I have come to believe that bats are very important to the environment.  With environment as my AOI, I will research and show how bats are vital to green efforts such as organic farming and control of insects.  A single big brown bat, a creature smaller than your palm, can eat between 600 and 1000 mosquito sized insects insects every hour for up to 6 hours every night.  That's almost 6,000 bugs per bat per night.  Not only do they get rid of the mosquitoes, bats eat many other types of insects such as crop bugs which would multiply immensely if left unchecked.  This makes them vital to organic farmers who rely on bats destroy the insects instead of using pesticides.
     My goal for this project is to build three bat houses and hang them up, ideally with at least one at the IA.  In order to accomplish this, I will need to build the bat houses before the end of October so that I can hang them before it gets cold after Novemer.  With that done, I will work of the research and presentation parts of the personal project until its due date at the end of the semester
     If I have managed to create and hang the bat houses, having found people who are sympathetic to bats or having converted people to see them in a better light, I will consider this a success since I will not be able to evaluate the effectiveness of the houses in any location until the spring.

October 16 and 17, 2012 - Catching Up & Prezi

     As you may have noticed, this blog does not always run in chronological order.  This is because earlier on in the project, I would spend a day or an evening at just building my bat houses and I wouldn't have the time afterward to blog about it.  Therefore, I have been writing backlogged journal entries.  They are accurate as every time I worked on the project I wrote it down on my whiteboard, they just need to be transferred to cyberspace.  This experience has taught me one important lesson: no matter what, always keep up with journals because they just keep multiplying if you miss doing them.  Classes give material for a post, as well as any time I may spend at this project after school or over the weekend.
    In that vein, today, October 17, I also rediscovered my Prezi account from last year and created a new Prezi as per the technology section of this project.  It talks briefly about my project, AOI, how much I have accomplised thus far and how much I have left to do.  Prezi has changed since the last time I used it, so I am still figuring some things out for the next time I use it.  I used to think it was just powerpoint with different transitions and, since I have spent a lot of time making power points, I preferred that tool.  However, this time, I found Prezi much more manageable and clear and I am now more open to using it in the future.

This is my Project Prezi:

Bat House Project Prezi on Prezi