Personal Inquiry Blog

Just visiting

2004-11-07T04:53:00.000-08:00

Just visiting the old neighborhood. I actually miss the old blogspot. It was sort of like doing morning pages before I went back to grad school. Now who has time? The musical goes on this week. Maybe I'll post some pictures for my classmates. Goodness knows my homework suffered for the last few weeks because of it. Well, must go to school and work on technical aspects of the show. More later.

Powerpoint

2004-10-16T05:30:00.000-07:00

This is a link to my http://mypage.iu.edu/~dwfisher/Personal%20inquiry%20slide%20show%20on%20owls_files/frame.htmPowerPoint presentation I've been spending some time this morning looking at the other projects in the class and some of them are really creative. I'd love to meet some of these people in future classes.

2004-10-11T10:45:00.000-07:00

Me with the snowy owl puppet. This picture is too big to upload into Steel so it isn't showing up in my PowerPoint.

Wishing

2004-10-10T14:40:00.000-07:00

What were the strengths and weaknesses of the project?
Well, as my friend Diane says, “You can teach a monkey to do research.” So, the amount of information I found, while prodigious, isn’t really a strength. The fact that it was an enjoyable experience was a definite plus. Naturally, having fewer other things to do in my life would have made it even more fun, but that’s a luxury I couldn’t afford. I especially liked having the email contacts to engage in question and answer sessions. It’s great to have someone right there or virtually right there who can answer a question as soon as it arises.
Another big strength was becoming more aware of my own process in terms of inquiry. It’s interesting to me that I know myself much better as an artist than as a student. Going through artist’s block certainly made me totally aware of what I needed to do in order to be creative. The process is also very similar. I know that I need to have a fallow period --that sort of watching, wondering and webbing period where I spend time in art galleries, look through my art books, take myself off to an interesting shop or museum and just let images swirl around in my head. Then I have a wiggling and weaving time when I’m actually in the studio pulling fabrics, making drawings, listening to music, starting to develop new work.
Weaving is moving things around on the design wall-- a sort of Jamie McKenzie-esque “sorting and sifting” time. Sewing things together and quilting come next. Wrapping is finishing up the quilt and waving is having a show or entering the quilt in a competition. Wishing goes on every time I look at an old piece—I shouldn’t have used that color, that image could have been stronger, workmanship could have been more perfect, and so on.
By spending time during this project thinking about my thinking, I realize that much of my process as an artist came from my student research process. I know that I spend a great deal of time reading about subjects that interest me, viewing videos and films about the topic if they’re available, forming questions, looking for more information, making lists, diagrams or drawings, but hardly ever discussing my work with anyone else. I think it’s because I’m more comfortable writing things out or just having them swirl around in my head. I am not confident that I can express myself very well verbally. (How interesting that my first career was as an actress! All I had to do was memorize someone else’s words rather than supply my own. And I hated improvisation for exactly that reason!)
So not seriously discussing my project with anyone would definitely be a weakness. Questioning is also an area in which I really only scratched the surface. I could have cycled back through the beginning steps, as Jamie McKenzie says, to revise my questions more times than I did.

What would I do differently?
In future, I will try to discuss projects with someone who could provide another insight or help me through a tough area. I also want to focus much more on questioning the next time so as to avoid the “information gathering shopping trip” that McKenzie talks about. I definitely have a tendency to be an impulse information gatherer.

Curriculum Connection
Early in my postings, I discussed the specific fifth grade standards that could be satisfied by the owl inquiry project specifically. I’ve also mentioned throughout my blog that the 7th grade language arts teachers and I have been discussing a yearlong personal inquiry project for students. One of the teachers wanted her students to pick a topic before they began the project. I think that the students should spend the first two months “watching”--reading lots of different books, magazines, newspapers—and doing lots of writing about what interests them about the things they are reading and what else they are curious about. After that time, they could settle on a topic area and begin to generate questions. This project will satisfy several 7th grade language arts standards that Daniel Callison outlined in Key Words, Concepts and Methods for Information Age Instruction:
1)Use strategies of note-taking, outlining and summarizing to improve writing structure
2) Identify topics; ask and evaluate questions; and develop ideas leading to inquiry (Callison, 79)

Personal connection
My awareness of my process has changed more than my actual process, I think, as a result of this project. The primary importance of questions, of recycling through the early inquiry steps are also important embellishments that I will be adding to my process. Just as becoming aware of one’s artistic process can help to overcome artist’s block, so understanding one’s personal inquiry habits can make that more efficient and emotionally rewarding.

A rap on "wrapping" with a little "waving" on the side

2004-10-09T07:41:00.000-07:00

If someone tries to cram one more thing into this week, I think my head will explode. Oy! Anna, our daughter, was home from Boston visiting all week. The musical my husband is directing is in production this week. My parents arrived last night. Seventh graders doing travel brochure research were in the library all week and my personal inquiry project is due on Monday. I feel as though I am barely keeping it all in the air. This too shall pass, however.

I decided on a PowerPoint aimed at the 8 to 14 year-old audience because most of the information about rehabilitation and conservation is aimed at adults and it’s important for kids to start thinking responsibly before they become adults. And since kids are usually interested in owls because of Harry Potter, I began the presentation with references to owls in the Harry Potter books. I arranged all my notes and the printouts I had highlighted in a preliminary order. Physiology first, then conservation and rehabilitation information, and ending with things to do to help. Then I decided to eliminate most of the information about rehabilitation because it’s mostly an adult issue. I wanted to be sure to mention environmental concern, but in reference to things that kid can actively do something about. I used lots of graphics, pictures and animation and sounds since our students seem to love those aspects in a PowerPoint. Two of my library helpers, Skylar and Dylan, looked at the presentation and pronounced it “cool.” My friend, Rhonda, the media aide, looked at it and found two typos, thank goodness! She had taken the digital picture of me with the stuffed owl yesterday morning and came down to make sure I’d gotten it into the presentation.

Essentially, I had enough information for about four different projects emphasizing different issues, so I had to fight against the urge to throw everything in somehow. I can see that this could be an issue with our students as well. If they spent time finding information, they would want to use it. Having the two Inspiration diagrams did help me to realize that the information on concerns arising from rehabilitation was really not something that was going to fit into a presentation for kids. I could also see that creating an Inspiration diagram would be a great way for kids to story board their own PowerPoint presentations. The center would be their first title slide, then if a circle leading off the center had more circles extending from it, they would know to use a slide with bullets or just a title slide. They could bring up the outline version of their document, print that out and write out their slides along the right side of the paper. Getting them to plan ahead isn’t always easy. They just want to make slides and then spend too much time finding graphics or animating them. I’d like to work with the sixth grade teachers to come up with a lesson plan for presenting PowerPoint in this manner. Creating the Inspiration document also gives the kids a sort of transformation scaffold to put their information into their own words.

"Wiggling" in the tub and "Weaving" elsewhere

2004-10-05T15:02:00.000-07:00

Now that I’m more aware of my thought processes, I realize that I do a great deal of thinking in the bathtub. (Some scientist whose name I can’t recall said “bed, bath and bus” were his times for creative thinking.) So whilst having a nice, leisurely soak in (appropriately enough) my claw-footed tub this morning, I was deciding what to do with all of this information I’ve amassed. Most of the physiological information I will probably file cerebrally. Goodness knows there are already too many websites devoted to that information. I want to focus on what the average person can do to help the professionals in the fields of rehabilitation and re-establishment and I want to have a service component. Volunteering was proving to be problematic. Soaring Hawk Raptor Rehabilitation Center is too far away. And while money is always needed, it’s not really service. So it came to me the other day that I could make a quilted wall hanging that could be auctioned off to raise money by the rehabilitation centers. An annotated bibliography is also on my list of things to accomplish since I want to document this entire process for a seventh grade language arts Resident Expert Project. If we get the students to start exploring a topic that interests them early in the year, they can work on their information inquiry skills all year as well as doing guided reading for Sustained Silent Reading.

This project has been a good exercise in letting go for me. I am such a control freak most of the time and I really let this take me wherever it led. I think as teachers we have to be a lot less invested in the specifics of what students research. As long as they are in the content “ballpark” we should give them their head as much as possible. Look at the interesting things I discovered by not having a fixed agenda. I know we don’t always have the luxury of lots of time for them to “wonder” around, but projects like the Resident Expert need to be encouraged for that reason.

Wingmasters in Massachusetts emailed back and sent their telephone number so I will call them tomorrow. The University of Florida group also finally emailed back but they weren’t involved in a re-establishment project with the burrowing owls so that was a dead end. I’ve had such good luck with emailing people so one dud isn’t bad.

I started a PowerPoint this morning and I’ll have some of my student workers look at it to see where I need to add information or transitions.

2004-10-03T07:46:00.000-07:00

Second Inspiration-created diagram dealing with issues involved with rehabilitating owls.

Conversations with Bev

2004-10-01T09:24:00.000-07:00

Email Conversations with Bev Day of O.W.L. (Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society) http://www.owlcanada.ca/

What are some of the reasons that you receive owls for rehabilitation?
Reasons for getting owls in care are loss of habitat. (E.g. barns being torn down) We usually try to talk the construction people into waiting as long as possible before demolition starts. That gives the babies a better chance of survival. Trees taken down for home construction and nest being found after the tree is cut. Bad year for food supply. (I.e. weather) In really rainy seasons, we tend to get lot of nestlings in from falling out of nests. Sometimes juveniles just haven’t learned survival skills or are left to their own resources by the parents. Hit by cars while foraging too close to the road where rodents are attracted because we humans throw a lot of junk out the window because as kids we were taught it was bio-degradable so it was okay
to do so. We teach differently in our classes that visit us so maybe we will make a difference for the future.

Once the owl is healthy, is it returned to the wild? If not, why?
Yes, the majority of birds in care are returned to the wild. We have a master bander that comes and bands birds that go back to the wild so we get some feedback on this. Over the years we have found with barn owls in particular, the adults have to be taken back to the area they came from. We have had returns on the bands that adults have been hit by cars making their way back to their territory. We have had young stay and nest in sites they were returned to after they have gone through our program. With barn owls in particular we have adopted a program which makes sure they have hunting skills as well getting used to the barn habitat. To this end we have a barn where they are placed at about
14-16 wks of age as they usually just started flying well by 12 weeks.
They are left in this habitat which does contain chickens so they get used to people going and collecting eggs without cleaning up in the owl section. We have 12 chickens just enough to make it feasible for that type of environment but not enough to deter us from our objective which is barn owls. The chickens come and go in this run but the owls do not have access to them as a food source or access to the outside through the chicken run. The Barnies have access to the outside runs as they wish either day or night to get them used to coming and going in
a barn situation.

The odd owl that has come to us have some injuries which even when healthy cannot be turned back to the wild. Jessie, a barred owl, being one. He suffered head trauma from impact with car. Went through our whole program. He can hunt, kill, fly etc., but anyone can walk up to him at any time and pick him up, as we say, "lights on, nobody home", so would make him accessible to anyone that found him in a forest to take home as a pet. Not acceptable under our criteria as releasable. Some owls have minor injuries that make them suitable as foster parents but not as education tools. We have 10 birds that we maintain and take to class. They show no evidence of stress and seem to like the human interaction. During training, this is monitored quite adequately
to make us deem them useful for education. Non-releasable that don't take to manning are used in our front education program and are also used as foster parents. The tours for education are by guide only or outside our locked area which gives the birds quite adequate distance so as not to be disturbed by viewing. All of our caging and distance from caging for viewing are above government standards. When we get our new property, I want to change the way the cages are designed, to improve the habitat for all events and injuries.

Are there laws against keeping owls as pets?
Yes there are laws against owning owls without permits but government here is approachable for some of the stupidest things. You can own owls if they are from out of province or bred in captivity. ANY bird that can go back to the wild is returned to the wild. Under no circumstances is a bird kept that can go back to the wild even when on the endangered species list. We have no right as rehabbers to decide to keep healthy birds in captivity. Some people do want us to turn birds over as they have capture permits or want them for the film industry. THESE requests are not granted unless they will take non-releasable.

Do you have any reintroduction programs similar to ones in the US that are attempting to reestablish burrowing owls in Minnesota?

The Fraser Valley here is the last area of any concentration of Barn Owls. They are considered on the endangered list here. We do have two areas or groups that are doing Burrowing owl breeding. What they are actually doing with the young afterward, I do not know. There used to be a program in the interior years ago but lack of government funding put that program to rest. Kay McKeever also does breeding and relocation. We do try to always find breeding programs for species at risk before considering education or other uses for the birds that CANNOT be released. Kay McKeever is usually the place we send most of our non-releasable owls.

What breed of owls do you see the most?

Our years change as to what we get in most, seems to generally be barn owls. To my knowledge, the barn owls are the only ones that will produce young all year round depending on weather so
if we have a Chinook [warm, dry, local wind] go through, hey, think it's spring.

What are the most important goals of your organization?
One of our main sayings here are the birds care comes first. People later. Education is one of our biggest ways to get info out to people. Kids are going to take over after us and walk in our footsteps so we do try to set good examples. Our president also has put up 70 barn owl
Boxes, some to replace some that are too small put up by an oil company to make themselves look good and some just to give birds better nesting sites. He also monitors all of these to make sure they are kept clean and also to keep track of which ones are active.

Your mention of nesting boxes brought up another question. I've been doing some reading about them and it seems that most people who spend lots of time with owls believe that putting them up on a pole is better than putting them up in a tree. What's your view on that?
In my opinion it would depend on the species of owl you are dealing with and the type of habitat they are used to as well as what predators would have access to the nesting box. Weather as well is a factor to take into consideration. There was a program for barn owls where the airport put out boxes in the surrounding fields. These boxes were
supposed to encourage them to stay out of the hangers. I think 10 large barn-shaped boxes were put up. I can't remember the dimensions, but think of a doghouse for a German Shepherd size dog! Only one of the 10 were ever used and only for 2yrs then deserted. I've known screech owls to nest in the middle of a pond in a wood duck box. Our barn owl boxes are either placed inside or on the outside of the barn depending whether or not the farmer wants the owls to have access to the inside of the barn. We have one nesting pair of barn owls in the middle of a sub-division about 2 blocks from farm area that have nested there or their kids for about 8 yrs now. The nest was originally meant for woodpeckers. Go figure…

Bev told me that of the 15 owls that are native to British Columbia, the only one they haven’t seen at their facility is a Burrowing Owl. O.W.L. also dealt with 365 birds of prey last year.

The "webbing" continues

2004-10-01T08:01:00.000-07:00

My email conversations with both of the rehabilitators has been really important to my emotional connection with this project. They have really personalized the issues for me. Both of these women are so committed to protecting animals that it is their job and their leisure activity. Because they did a wonderful job of conveying their emotional connection to these animals, I use their words rather than paraphrasing.

E-mail Conversations with Mindy Poole, wildlife rehabilitator

Have you ever had any experience with owls?

“I have rehabilitated owls, and other birds of prey. At first I feed them ground turkey, chicken or beef. I also offer small chunks of meat.
Owls are meat eaters. For rehabilitation, I try to keep them as close to nature as I possibly can. I keep them in a large outdoor cage with a roof. The cage is hung in trees. I feed them with meat tongs, and never touch them with my bare hands. I like to keep my fingers. As they get stronger I offer them some live mice. When they are well enough to catch the mice, and feed themselves they are ready to be set free.
I continue to offer the fresh meat, and leave it outside the cage when they are set free, so they can return if they need too, but they usually don’t. I have only rehabilitated one adult.”

“The adult Owls are very dangerous to rehabilitate. They try to protect
themselves, hiss, threaten....At first I put meat in the cage and left it alone. He as much to scared to eat in front of me. I used the meat tongs to place the meat in the cage, to protect my hands. I also kept water available at all times.”

How did you learn to rehabilitate animals? Did you take classes or learn from someone else?

“I was raised in the country in a very secluded area. I saved small animals as a child. I actually learned what they need on my own, by watching them in the wild.... If I had a problem I would call a local vet who would tell me what I needed to know. He also gave me a recipe for baby animals which I modify depending if they are meat eaters, or if they eat vegetables...I eventually raised animals for a rehabber, but on my own at my home, and after a couple years got licensed myself so I could save more. I also spend a lot of time with the animals, and have a way of knowing what they want. Some need fed more often...”

“Animals have a way of communicating through their actions, and you can always tell if an animal is healthy or not by looking into its eyes. Just like a child, their eyes sort of look sad if they are not feeling well. I work for Home for Friendless Animals. I am a manager there. is a no-kill animal sanctuary where I work.) My boss says I just have a special touch with he animals. I seem to know there is a problem at a glance. I have a hard time understanding why other people don’t see what I see, just looking into the eyes of an animal. It’s just like looking into the eyes of a friend. You can tell if they are sick, tired, scared, happy.............Animals are just the same.”

I'm going to go ahead and publish this much and then do another posting with Bev's comments.

2004-09-30T07:20:00.000-07:00

Inspiration-created diagram of information about how we can help owls.

"Wiggling" and "Weaving" while walking

2004-09-28T07:32:00.000-07:00

I walk to school in the morning. It's a mile and a half as the owl flies and I realized that I do a great deal of "wiggling" and "weaving" during that walk. Normally it takes 20 minutes--I keep a good pace but don't hurry. It's a time to wake up, think about the day ahead and then mull things over. Maybe it's the movement that sort of juggles things around in one's mind. For me, it's not usually a time when I get new ideas. If I'm working on a quilt, it's a time for me to find a way around a problem area or refine an idea that's already percolating. (Julia Cameron has written an entire book about how walking helped her get past writer's block.) My favorite time of the walk is when I cross through the Wabash campus and aboretum. It's beautiful and peaceful. The squirrels are working already and the birds are calling to each other and most students are still in bed. Now, the reason for this pleasant diversion is that this morning as I was crossing the campus, I was mulling over something I read last night in a great book called Owls of the World. The chapter was called "Conservation" which is something of an old-fashioned word these days. (My grandfather was a Conservation officer for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.) The really interesting point that the author made was that we really need to think beyond just conserving a species in the old sense. Animals evolved because of changes in their environment. They adapted or they died out. Of course, in this day and age, we have the ability to change the environment much faster, but that doesn't mean that animals aren't trying to make the changes. The author went on to point out that one of the jobs of ecologists is to study animals in their habitats and look for these changes. Then it occured to me that the little article I read about the burrowing owls using cow dung to attract dung beetles is an illustration of a modern adaptation. Cows weren't here before Europeans came to this country so the owls using cow dung is (in evolutionary terms) a really new behavior. The other responsiblity of ecologists is to try to safeguard habitats so that we give the animals time to make changes. So ecology is a changing and evolving thing. We can't really stop progress, we just have to buy these animals a little more time. I realized that I had a very conservative idea of what ecology was. I was thinking of it as much more like maintaining the status quo. Ecologists are really saying, "We know things are going to change and that some of that change is good, but let's consider all the ramifications that will result from this change." I am so grateful for all these folks who rehabilitate animals, go to schools to present programs or host field trips and camps to educate people, talk to farmers, put up nest boxes, and lobby Congress. And for those of us who care, I want to provide some suggestions of ways we can help and things that we can do to be more mindful (as the Buddhists say) of our actions. I'm now going to try to figure out Inspiration so I can put some of my information into graphic organizers.

"Webbing" : The search continues...

2004-09-27T13:25:00.000-07:00

What kind of information do I need?
Digital-based: I decided to try Wabash Valley Education Center’s online catalogue and discovered three videos about owls. They arrived Friday and I watched them last night. “Two Little Owls” followed two owlets from the time of being hatched to leaving the nest to hunt on their own. “Raptors: Birds of Prey” covered all the raptors but had a great segment on an injured owl whose wing was being set. “Owls and Their Pellets” focused on barn owls and also included a segment with an injured owl. Not a lot of new information, but I loved the images of the owls soaring through the air. The other format I want to explore is the CD-ROM National Geographic.

Live: Both Mindy and Bev have emailed me several times and are probably providing me with the best information since it’s absolutely firsthand. The more I read about the rehabilitation efforts, the more I want to have some sort of service component in this project. These wonderful people, in many cases, are financing these rehabilitations themselves. Mindy certainly is. Bev has her organization to support her efforts, but she probably has to do fund-raising constantly to keep it going.

How do I find the specific pieces of information I need?
Web Pages: I did some more Internet searching today. Using ixquick www.ixquick.com a metasearch engine, I used “rehabilitate AND owls” and found a wonderful site called Wingmasters. It’s in Massachusetts near my brother so I emailed them to find out if they allow visitors. Next I tried “owls nesting boxes Indiana” and looked at the Department of Natural Resources site. Apparently, the only nesting box project in Indiana is in southern Indiana but is fairly ambitious. EZ2 Find http://ez2find.com has a wonderful image tab. Searching with “barn owls” I found so terrific pictures. I wonder why the Federal government doesn’t provide more leadership in re-establishing owls. The farmers and agricultural departments are all involved in nesting box projects because they are being pressured to use less chemicals to control rodents and barn owls are rodent eating machines. When the birds don’t recognize state boundaries (or national boundaries for that matter!) wider cooperation would really help.
While this post was basically about webbing, there is lots of wiggling and weaving going on as well.

Metacognition or what I think about "thinking about thinking"

2004-09-24T11:15:00.000-07:00

This is a slippery concept and one of those things that just makes me crazy. Everyone tells you it’s “thinking about thinking” but then they aren’t able to tell you much after that or what they tell you is so clouded by jargon that it makes no sense. I finally found a really good, clear article (by Julie Halter, a graduate student at South Dakota State University) that really helped me understand it. http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/Articles/metacognition/start.htm
Julie says that metacognition “…consists of two basic processes occurring simultaneously: monitoring your progress as you learn, and making changes and adapting your strategies if you perceive you are not doing so well. (Winn, W. & Snyder, D., 1998) It's about self-reflection, self-responsibility and initiative, as well as goal setting and time management.” OK! That I can understand.
Metacognition is one of those things intelligent people do unconsciously like reading and seeing pictures in your brain or that internal dialogue you have with yourself while your reading something that reminds you of your life or something else you read and then it gets incorporated into your cerebral film festival. When I read an article last year that said not all children see pictures in their minds when they read, I wanted to cry. That’s one of the most wonderful things about reading!
I love the choice of dynamic infinitives in the final observation. Julie believes that the “…task of educators is to acknowledge, cultivate, exploit and enhance the metacognitive capabilities of all learners.”
Recursion certainly makes sense in view of the process of making changes and adapting strategies. As Sandy Guild points out in her essay in Curriculum Connections Through the Library, recursion “…is invoked any time the researcher determines that the emerging complex of relationships has undeveloped areas, logical errors, or incongruities.”(141)
It’s getting easier now that I have a base knowledge to relate some of this reading to. I need to feel that I have a handle on things before I can talk or write about them. And I really do have to relate new information to something else that I know. I did really well in math until I got to middle school and then they introduced “new math” and I was totally confused. I always got geometry because there was lots of memorization and you could draw pictures. But Algebra II and Pre-Calculus—forget it. Then about 15 years ago I took Pre-Calculus at Wabash with a woman professor who said, “A function is like a machine. You put a number in one end, turn a crank and another number comes out.” Suddenly, the fog lifted. I not only got it, I was good at it! How amazing that one little phrase could totally alter my understanding.

2004-09-22T07:25:00.000-07:00

Take two on the owl picture.

An early "Webbing" post

2004-09-20T11:46:00.000-07:00

One of the people I was able to contact for my project is a wildlife rehabilitator who lives about 12 miles from me. I sent her some questions and we've been emailing back and forth as I think up more questions! She rescued an owl last fall and a picture is attached in the next post because I edited this one and somehow managed to mess up the picture. I have also heard back from Bev in British Columbia who is with O.W.L. She said this morning that of the 12 breeds that inhabit BC, a burrowing owl is the only one they haven't rehabilitated in some way. She mentioned owl boxes also so I asked her if she thought it was best to put them on poles or in trees. (An online article I read yesterday suggested that they will be used more if they are put up on poles.) My friend Diane also sent me an article from Nature magazine about a study being conducted in Florida with burrowing owls who use cow dung to attract dung beetles to their burrows! Tool use in raptors!! There's an email address so I'm going to give them a try, too. I searched Marco Polo using "raptor rehabilitation" and found a good article from National Geographic on barn owls. I also found a lesson plan using the video "Birds of Prey". I am borrowing that from Wabash Valley Education Center along with several others this Friday. Marco Polo is wonderful because it's standards-based. Searching today using "owl captive breeding" to look for other programs. Discovering that most of the "owls as pets" problems are in the UK because they don't have laws against keeping raptors as pets like we do here. I may try to go to the zoo in Indianapolis next Friday with the digital camera.

Wondering...A more formal look at developing researchable questions

2004-09-20T08:17:00.000-07:00

In the Wondering step of the 8W's, the student is finding the purpose of the inquiry through questioning and examining the topic area in terms of prior knowledge. By the time this step is completed, the student should be finding a focus and narrowing the topic.

I have become a real fan of Jamie McKenzie's website http://www.questioning.org He says that "questions and questioning...are the tools that lead to insight and understanding." We need to learn to "live with entire families of questions, " according to McKenzie, and to realize that many questions don't get answered and only spawn more questions. This brings me to the character McKenzie calls "the serial questioner." http://www.question.org/may04/serialquestioners.html This is a model to which I aspire. These are the qualities that McKenzie describes:

Humility
Relentless curiosity
Indefatigable persistence
Dogged determination
Open-mindedness
Tolerance of ambiguity
Thirst for the missing
Positive skepticism
Sharpened humor
Edgy wit
Vivid imagination
Cussedness

I want to keep these characteristics in mind as I work on this project. I want always to be a serial questioner in every aspect of my life.

This entire process for me is a little like juggling--I want to read and understand the professional literature and then assimilate it so that I can use it in my inquiry process. Like trying to keep two eyes on three moving objects in the air, you are always afraid something is going to slip out of your line of vision and fall down. And like so many things in my life, I'm sort of going at this backwards. I've been teaching for years and taking care of the library for six years and now I'm taking education and library science classes. I like having the experiences to call upon, and I can really understand the practical applications of many things I'm learning in theory. Wow, that was really parenthetical.

So...why owls? I have always loved birds, watching them, feeding them. When the Harry Potter films came out, I was struck by the dichotomy of their beauty and their role as raptors in nature. Why do they symbolize wisdom in nearly every culture in which they are found? Why did J.K. Rowling conceive of them as messengers? Why did parents think a raptor would make a good pet for their children?!!

In terms of prior knowledge, I must confess to not knowing much about owls. I was aware of the plight of the spotted owl in the old growth forests of the Northwest and that owls were good for gardens so many people put out owl boxes to provide nesting opportunities for them. What other owls were being threatened by pollution or eradication of their habitats? What, if anything, was being done to help save these habitats? What could I do personally to help these causes?

While I started out like every middle school kid putting "owls" in Google, I found several interesting sites in the first 20 hits. One of them was the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota. From this site, I learned about rehabilitation of injured owls. (How do owls become injured? Who takes care of them? Can they be sucessfully returned to the wild?) I also read about programs to breed owls whose numbers are dwindling and reintroduce them into the wild. I used Kartoo.com and searched "owl rehabilitation". (I love the little tree and branch connections among the sites!) From this search, I was able to find O.W.L. (Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society) in Canada. After an email contact, I sent a list of questions to them:

What are some of the reasons that you receive owls for rehabilitation?
Once the owl is healthy, is it returned to the wild? If not, why?
Are there laws against keeping owls as pets?
Do you have any reintroduction programs similar to ones in the US that are attempting to reestablish burrowing owls in Minnesota?
What kind of owls do you see the most?

I also found out that there was a wildlife rehabilitator about 12 miles from my house. I emailed her and have been receiving replies regularly. Most of her posts have spawned additional questions.

Once again following McKenzie's lead, I am narrowing my focus using How?, Why?, and What is the best? and I've come up with these questions:

How can owls be kept safe and healthy? How can their habitats be preserved? Why can't we reintroduce endangered owl species to areas that are protected? What is the best way for the average person to observe and appreciate owls?

Still tinkering but I think I'm down to a "manageable chunk" as Dr. Lamb puts it.

Testing Hello account

2004-09-14T09:23:00.000-07:00

OK. I figured out how to work the Hello account. This doesn't have anything to do with my personal inquiry project but it was handy. "In the library with my anniversary roses. "

"Watching" Topic Exploration

2004-09-13T17:20:00.000-07:00

The nerdy, perennial student who lives inside me leapt with joy when it saw this assignment. I must admit that I love nothing better than finding a new topic to explore. When I was a little kid, I'd go to the public library and systematically check out every book they owned on whatever my hot topic of the moment was--horses, the Lindbergh kidnapping, Anastasia, and so on. As I got older, I added buying books to the mix and now there's the Internet...watch the pool of drool. Anyway, it was difficult to decide on what to pursue. I've had this jones for the Arts and Crafts movement for several years. When my husband was at the Newberry Library in Chicago, I worshipped at the Art Institute and gazed with love at all the Louis Sullivan and FLW buildings. During our stay in London, it was William Morris and the V&A and the Tate. My son's life as a Buddhist and a vegan makes me interested in both those topics. My daughter's career in the theater which was also my original training and my husband's work, fans that interest. My fascination with all birds and now owls in particular. The lives of my favorite writers, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf and Louisa May Alcott. And the list goes on and on.

I spent a lot of time looking through my books, pictures from our trips and doing lots of Internet surfing to see where one of these topics might lead me. Since many of these areas of interest are historical, there isn't really much new happening with the information about them. With owls, it was a different story. There were lots of really compelling issues--endangered species, people trying to adopt owls as pets as a result of the Harry Potter films, rehabilitation of injured owls, captive breeding and reintroduction. I found myself coming back to those sites again to check out more links and wanting to find out more about what could be done to return more of these remarkable birds to the world.

Kuhlthau's Syndrome

2004-09-12T04:43:00.000-07:00

I think I have Kuhlthau's Syndrome. I've got all the symptoms--uncertainty, confusion, frustration, lack of confidence. I'm in the Zone of Intervention and I'm running a fever! Someone call 411. I need to see the doctor.

OK, seriously, the inquiry project is going well. I'm narrowing my topic down to How have changes in the environment affected owls? What can be done to help owls who are injuried or whose numbers have been decimated by the encroachment of human beings? The lady at the sanctuary in Canada received my questions and emailed back that she'll work on them and get back to me. The wildlife rehabilatator in Waynetown emailed back with lots of interesting stuff about her experiences with an owl. She doesn't have one now, but she'll let me know if she gets one before October 1. Still have to contact the zoos so I can get some pictures. The Minnesota Rehab Center has lots of great info and good links. I wish it was closer. I'd love to go to their camp sometime.

I'm going to try to keep track of all this stuff so Susan's students will have something to look at and I'm going to suggest the BLOG as a dialogue journal option. I think she needs to free up the form that the final project takes so that the students can more or less design their own product just as long as they can share it with an oral presentation.

Back to reading about the models.

Venting..or You bring the cheese and crackers, I've got the whine.

2004-09-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

I wonder if anyone else is feeling completely beaten down and defeated by this class? I hate the lack of human contact and with so many places to post on Oncourse, we don't even have the commaradarie of a listserv in common. This is probably one of the most important classes I will take in this program and I just feel like I can't get a handle on it because there's no way I can keep up with the reading. I don't know what to really read and study, what to scan or what to ignore. I tried printing out just the material from two of the eight W's and it was already over 200 pages. One of the articles was 104 pages long! I am so frustrated and I feel completely alone in this. I try to at least skim the postings so I can find something to comment on and no one else seems to be troubled. I don't know. Maybe I'm too old to have tried this but at the same time, spending at least three hours a day on this class seems a little excessive.

I found a woman at a raptor sanctuary in Canada who agreed to an email interview and the Louisville Zoo has a Raptor Rehab Center. I'll email them to find out if they have owls. There's also a wildlike rehabilitator in Waynetown. At this stage I'm planning to focus on environmental issues involving owls and how they are rehabilitated. The last text book finally arrived in the mail yesterday so now I have MORE things to read and be behind on. OH, JOY!

Settling on a topic

2004-09-06T07:24:00.000-07:00

After a look through the standards, I've decided that my topic for the personal inquiry project will be owls. The fifth grade standards are such that an interdisciplinary unit at that level would work. Some potential researchable questions I've come up with so far include:

Math Standards 5.6.1 and 5.6.2 (Data Analysis) and 5.7.1 and 5.7.2 (Problem Solving)How far can an owl actually fly?
Science Standards 5.4.1-5.4.9 (The Living Environment) How does destroying an owl's habitat affect other living things? In what ways is an owl's body system different than mine?
Social Studies Standards 5.2.10 (Roles of Citizens) How can we save the endangered habitats of owls?
Language Arts Standards 5.3.5 (Literary Devices) Why is the owl a symbol of wisdom in literature and art?

I also like "Would an owl make a good pet?" but I'm not sure where it fits in the standards.

I'm going to try to contact the Owl Research Institute in Montana. They were featured in a National Geographic article that featured tracking Snowy Owls for distances flown. I've started compiling a list of fiction books featuring owls as well as the non-fiction. Next step is to check zoos and bird preserves. Maybe Dan's friend who runs the farm animal santuary knows of some.

First Thoughts

2004-08-31T08:35:00.000-07:00

I have that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I used to get when confronted with a blank piece of notebook paper in elementary school--terror at the thought of having to write something that might not be perfect. Well...nothing ventured and all that.

I can't seem to pin down what it is I want to do this personal inquiry project on. Lots of things interest me--art history, needlework, owls, Buddhism--but which one to decide on?

An email to Dr. Lamb is probably in order at this point. Let's see what this looks like.