Day 5 - Craziness!!

So again, for those of you that are just starting to read this, I apologize for being so behind on updating this blog.  It was a crazy last couple of days and there are not enough hours in the day to get everything done.

Day 5 - Our first full day in Duluth

We started out the day by waking up and having breakfast at the hotel.  The Edge Resort has a fabulous breakfast!!  We had eggs and sausage, fruit, bagels, the works!  It was the best breakfast we had had so far.  Then to make it even better, my good friend Issac Miner brought us donuts from Super One!!  They were delicious :D He also brought us a bunch of water which was totally needed.  Our kids aren't used to the heat at all.  The tundra, where we are at, has a temperate climate so the hottest it gets is maybe 72 and that's a freak accident.  Usually it's in the mid 60's for most of the summer.  So Issac rocks and we all loved him for the donuts/water.

Next we headed out to downtown Duluth to take a ride on the Vista Star, a part of the Vista Fleet.  For those of you who have never gone on one of these cruises I encourage you to go!  Vista Fleet is an attraction where they take you out onto Lake Superior and the harbor.  You learn so much!  It's a completely different perspective of Duluth.  The students had a pretty good time.  They liked being out on the water and really got to see how BIG Superior is, again a whole different perspective.  They learned how deep Lake Superior is, deepest point being 1,333 feet deep give or take a mile.  That's crazy to them.  The furthest out in the ocean they've been is 60-90 feet deep.  They also got to learn about the lift bridge and see it go up and down, that was entertaining to watch.  We all learned a lot about the big boats that were floating around as well.  I'm glad that was covered on the cruise because they kept asking questions and I don't know a whole lot about the shipping business on Lake Superior.

Getting ready to take off

They blew the horn....it was LOUD!

  

Mom tagged along for this part of the trip and joined us throughout the day.  The best quote of the day came when the ship's crew led a pop quiz, the question being "What are the names of the 5 great lakes?"  Last year our students learned about the great lakes and the acronym HOMES.  We were reminding them of this, so they could win the prize, when one of my students asked me, "Which lake does the S stand for?"  I looked at her and said, "You mean the one we're floating on right now and you've been learning about for the past hour?"  Yeah, she got it then.  My mom and Sheila were just cracking up, definitely a blonde moment.  One of our students did win that pop quiz, and later on, at the end of the cruise, another one of our students won the last pop quiz for guessing the average temperature of Lake Superior. 

Charlotte with her prize after guessing the average temp of Lake Superior

Marcus with his candy for naming the 5 great lakes

In the harbor they have a mini island that's a bird sanctuary and all the boys could think about was "lunch!"  They kept making bird calls and repeating how they wish they had their guns.  They are all craving bird soup from home and seeing all those birds didn't help :D

Looking at the water

Group shot on the boat

All in all it was a great experience and the students liked being on the water for the morning.  It ended up being a 2 hour cruise, so by the end they were ready to do something else.

We had lunch at Grandma's, my personal favorite restaurant in Canal Park.  The waiter was SO nice!  We had already pre-ordered our food so it didn't take long for us to eat.  Everyone either had a steak, which was delicious!, or shrimp.  I was so happy that they didn't have hamburgers on the menu.  Sheila and I really wanted them to experience more foods as well as activities and Grandma's gave us a great menu to choose from that helped expand their palates a bit.

Group shot with our awesome waiter

Kyle trying a lemon....obviously he loved it!

Our next stop was the Great Lakes Aquarium.  I love this aquarium!  I volunteered there for around 2 years, teaching an outreach program, and then worked there for another 2-3 years.  The greatest people work there and it truly is a fabulous place to visit.  My mom has to visit every time she's in Duluth.  So of course, I had to make sure our students got to visit.  They don't know that much about fresh water and the plants and animals involved so they really learned a lot.  It was a huge hit!  They really enjoyed the giant fish tanks and how they got to look up in certain ones.  They also enjoyed dancing with the birds and touching the fresh water sting rays.

Touching the fresh water sting rays

Touching the lake sturgeon

Another crazy thing that happened was that three news stations and the Duluth News Tribune showed up to interview me, Sheila and the students about our trip.  For our shy students this was NUTS!!  Afterward they couldn't stop talking about how they got to be interviewed and what they said, it was a totally new experience.  I was interviewed a couple of times about the trip, as was Sheila.  Fox 21 news asked me if I could pick out a student that they could follow around during their visit and I chose our most outgoing student, Charlotte.  It was great!  Later on that night we saw the news report and Charlotte was so fun to watch!  I have all the links at the bottom of the page, I hope you'll check them out!

A moose!  Something we're familiar with

playing with the green screen

  



I can't believe how interested everyone was, it was a complete shock to see all these people wanting to talk to all of us.  Lindsay Brandt. a friend and employee at the aquarium, tipped me off that the press was interested but I was truly surprised by it all, as was the rest of our crew.  I do want to send a huge thank you to the GLA staff for putting up with us and setting up the press, you guys all truly rock :D

After the students toured the aquarium and the cameras had left they got to participate in a "Lake Lab" class with Lindsay.  It was so fun!  The students first acted like they were bored but they quickly changed their minds.  They learned about the composition of a lake, the food chain, and about the plankton and other tiny animals that live in the lakes.  Lindsay had them dress up like the different elements of the food chain:  Sun, zoo plankton, phyto plankton, some sort of bug, a fish, a fisherman, and a decomposer.  The outfits were hilarious and the students really got into it.

The food chain!  Look at those costumes

Getting water samples

Checking out their samples

Pouring their samples into their bottles

After that section they learned about invasive species, namely the zebra mussel, and went out to the lake to take samples of the water.  The students really loved the hands on part of this experiment, getting to use actual scientific tools to collect water samples from the lake made them feel important.  Not a lot of our students feel confident when it comes to science and this lab helped them feel confident about what they were learning about.  As soon as the students got the water samples they brought them back into the classroom and took samples to look under a microscope.  This part was very enlightening for them.  They had to identify what type of plankton they had in their samples and it was a shock to a lot of them when they actually found one and could ID it!!  There was a lot of yelling, "Mayo!  Come!  Look at this!"  Sheila, Oscar, Mom and I were running from student to student, looking at different plankton and encouraging them to keep looking for more.  We could have done this all day but unfortunately it was getting late so all to soon we had to say good bye to the lab.

Getting samples to look at

Using the microscopes to ID the plankton

I love that all of them have their hands on their heads...

The last treat for the day was we got to have a backstage tour of the aquarium.  The students got to learn how they filter all the tanks.  We also got to see the kitchen and what they feed the animals.  Let me tell you, the bag of frozen mice did NOT go unnoticed.  We also got to see the animals that were not on display for whatever reasons.  There were a couple of birds and fish, but the biggest attraction was Bob the Ball Python!  Most of them had NEVER seen a snake up close before.  Bob was a shock to a lot of them and not only did they get to see him but they got to TOUCH him!!  It was a crazy experience for a lot of them but they were grinning ear to ear when we left the aquarium.

Touching Bob the Ball Python!!

Otters!!

Group Shot!

After we thanked everyone at the aquarium, we headed back to the hotel.  It had been a long day and they were tired.  We were doubly blessed today because the director of the aquarium, Jack LaVoy, contacted Todd Torvinen, who is connected with the Edge Resort, and he brought us dinner!  We got chicken and ribs!  Talk about amazing!  Again Jack and everyone else from the Great Lakes Aquarium were so great to us and we were all so thankful!

After dinner....it was WATER PARK TIME!!!  The best part about the Edge's water park is that it is shallow.  A lot of our students cannot swim or if they do swim, not very well.  The water park was nice and shallow so the students felt comfortable swimming and going down the water slides.  Sheila and I joined them and it was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!  You have never seen 14 more happier kids in your life.  They were having a blast.  Later on Sheila and I took them to the hot tub, a first for most of them!  They kept telling me it was a maqii (steam bath) only with way more water!  Later on we went to the outside pool and that was great too!  They got to swim outside...at night...OOOOHHHH.  Sheila and I also taught some of them how to float on their back and helped them learn how to swim.  One of our girls did not know how to swim but by the end of that night she graduated from holding on to the side of the pool to paddling around instead.  We were very proud of her!  Needless to say it took a crowbar to get them out of the pool.  I wish we had more pictures of them swimming but we were too busy joining in that neither Sheila nor I thought to bring the camera.

That night I spent a lot of time fixing "ouchies" from the pool.  The floor was a bit rough and their feet and toes got beat up a bit.  I used up a lot of band aides but they all said it was worth it.  I got a picture of some of the students, and Sheila, showing off their battle scars of the trip so far.   Once everyone got showered, dried off, and ready for bed, they fell asleep pretty quickly.  It was a very long day!

Showing off their battle scars

Here are the links to the news stories and for the Duluth News Tribune story on us:

http://www.fox21online.com/news/field-trip-lifetime
http://www.northlandsnewscenter.com/news/local/Alaska-Students-Visit-Duluth-123205878.html
http://www.wdio.com/article/stories/S2142607.shtml?cat=10335
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/200992/

I highly recommend the Fox 21 story!  Charlotte is very entertaining to see :D