January 8, 2013

Today, I gathered materials for the final presentation.  I went to the local arts store and bought a black trifold board which I plan to use both for the exhibition and to present to the class.  I also emailed Jessica Fabian from the OBC Bat Zone to ask if it would be possible for me to borrow a stand to hold my house upright in the presentation so everyone can see it.  I hope it works out!

January 5, 2013

I just received word from DTE and the representative, Ms. Roberta Urbani, told me that she was able to confirm with the people in the apartments and that they would like both of my standard sized bat houses.  They will not be hung before the project is to be presented or even before the end of the semester.  However, it will happen and I am hopeful that my friends at the Bat Zone will be able to help me find a home for the third.  Today, I also began work on my presentation that is due on January 10th.  I am going to make a poster explaining about bats, bat houses, and my project.  I will also bring in one of my smaller bat houses to show the class.  I also plan to have a meeting with my teacher next class to confirm that I have everything ready for the exhibition.

Final Report Draft Completion

Today in class, I completed and turned in a rough draft of my final written report.  I say completed because upon my arrival to class, I realized that I had neglected to cite several of the sources I had used to research bat houses, the most important one being an informal interview I had with the volunteer coordinator and animal care supervisor at Bat Zone in which she gave me a lot of good advice about building and hanging bat houses and gave me a lot of good information about why bat houses are so important.  My teacher was generous enough to allow me to fix it and turn it in.

Final Report

Today I began the rough draft of my final report.  I am about half way done and the draft is due to be edited by my teacher on the 13th.  I feel that I am in a very secure spot and expect to finish over the weekend and have plenty of time to edit.  Once it is returned, I will make sure to make improvements in accordance with my teacher's recommendations before turning it in at the end of the semester.

December 1, 2012 - Finishing the Bat Houses

Today, I finished all of my bat houses.  I left them to dry from last week, so this week I simply had to repeat the process and paint front and back with several hours in between to dry.  After I was sure that they were completely dry after the second coat,  I took the houses down to check for any areas I might have missed, then restapled the mesh of the front of the house that I had to remove to paint under.  Finally, all three, large and two smalls, were complete.  I washed off the brushes and cleaned up the workbench.  Now, all I have to do is wait for the environmental planner from DTE to respond to my email (we have been corresponding over whether DTE can use my bat houses on their utility poles, for their customers or on their grounds).  During this project, I learned a lot, not only about bats and bat houses but about carpentry, communicating with people, and various forms of technology.  I feel it has been very beneficial to my further education.

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.