The Highlight of my APES Experience
Julia Young
As we reach the end of a semester full of environmental discussions and unique hands-on learning, it is easy to forget about the variety of topics we discussed and start to generalize our experience in the class. We took a record number of field trips, learned from a variety of professionals, and— perhaps— changed our views on some things. For this last blog post, I want to open the floor to all of you guys. Tell us about something you learned in these past 18 weeks; It can be as life-changing or as basic as you’d like. Have you applied anything we’ve learned? Or, tell us about your most favorite experience in this class. I’ll go first.
As we reach the end of a semester full of environmental discussions and unique hands-on learning, it is easy to forget about the variety of topics we discussed and start to generalize our experience in the class. We took a record number of field trips, learned from a variety of professionals, and— perhaps— changed our views on some things. For this last blog post, I want to open the floor to all of you guys. Tell us about something you learned in these past 18 weeks; It can be as life-changing or as basic as you’d like. Have you applied anything we’ve learned? Or, tell us about your most favorite experience in this class. I’ll go first.
Looking back, my favorite day of this semester was when the snake lady (AKA Mrs. Jill) FaceTimed us! Snakes have always freaked me out, and when she said that they are nothing to be afraid of, I laughed. However, throughout the lesson, I learned that rather than decapitate every wild snake we see with a shovel (which is my general response), we need to treat them with respect and dignity, just like any other wild animal we may encounter. Snakes are a big part of the food web, and help us out a ton by keeping away pests like rats.
2 weekends ago, when I went to Prom, I had no idea that I’d apply anything I learned in APES on that night. Boy was I wrong! After the dance, I was at a friend’s house, and some of us decided to go for a swim. All was well until I felt a little something brush against my arm…
That’s right, you guessed it, a snake had decided to accompany me (This was a foot-long, dark brown, LIVING snake!!). As I said before, my first thought was “somebody kill this guy”, but then I remembered Mrs. Jill. I was near a step, so I calmly hopped out of the pool, urging everyone else evacuate as well. Nobody wanted anything to do with that snake, but we eventually selected a brave soul to scoop him out with a pool net, and he flung the snake out into the nearby woods. I’m not too sure how ethical the fling was, but it was better than murdering him on the spot, like some of the guys wanted to do.
The point is, whether you failed that AP test or not, our Environmental Science background has made many of us into better citizens of the Earth, and I hope that we can continue to apply what we learned here to our real lives. I am excited to hear what stood out most to you guys. Have you lent a helping hand to the environment lately?
Comments
All in all, it was a great year and I'm so happy to have went on this APES journey with you guys. (Okay that was really corny... I'll stop.)
I loved that this blog tied everything up that we have learned in this class! APES has taught me so much that I wasn’t aware of before. I thought I knew a lot about our environment, but I didn’t! This class has allowed me to see the environment in a new way and recognize more of the problems we are facing today. I am now more aware of what is happening to our environment and to our earth.