Happy America Day! (Kate's 1st Post)

The 4th of July is referred to by our Kenyan friends as "America Day" and a great celebration was planned and executed with style at the Ranch house on Mpala. However, before the party got started, there were schools to visit and children to teach. The group split in two, with Annelise, Colleen and Helen heading out in the jeep to visit Ewaso Primary while Alex, Dayton and I hitched a ride over to the Mpala Academy, the primary school located on Mpala, walking distance from the ranch.

At Mpala Academy, it was food chain day and we started the lesson by reading the Great Kapok Tree to a rapt audience of primary school children who missed much of the English, but enjoyed the pictures. The Mpala Academy Conservation Club teacher translated the gist of the story into Swahili as each page was turned.

Dayton reading from the Great Kapok Tree

Once the story was over, the children were asked to name all of the animals that were characters in the story and after a little proding they were able to come up with them all, including humans. Then it was lesson time and Alex smoothly transitioned the class from the Great Kapok Tree story into a lesson on food chains, using the animals from the story to help illustrate the different levels of the food chain: producers, herbivores, carnivores and omnivores. The children had clearly heard these terms and learned these concepts before and were easily able to come up with examples of each from both the Amazon setting of the Great Kapok Tree and their own more familiar Kenya. After demonstrating a food web illustration on the chalkboard, Alex then gave the students some time to draw their own food webs which they did with gusto.

The awesome Alex teaching the class about food webs

Students hard at work on their own food webs

After the students had completed their food web drawings and shared them with their classmates, we took the class outside. I got my first taste of the hard work the students have all been putting in preparing for Community Day when the Mpala Academy Conservation Club performed their poem for us as a practice run to prepare for the big day tomorrow. I was blown away with the poise and talent of these primary school children and it got me incredibly excited for tomorrow's event.

After the dress rehearsal performance, we introduced the students to a game called Lions and Antelope which is just the Kenya version of Sharks and Minnows where you start with one predator and a heard of prey. The prey attempt to run from one end of the field to the other, while the predator tags as many as he can. Anyone who is tagged then becomes a predator. Its a great game because it gets the students running around but it also teaches a basic lesson on supply and population growth within an ecosystem.

Lions and Antelope!

When the game was over, it was time to say goodbye to the students. Usually at Mpala, we teach a computer class after the Conservation Club lesson, but today there was no power at the school, so we were not able to do the "Google search" lesson that Alex had planned for the day. The teachers also wanted to send the students home early, as they had to be back at the school at 6:00 am the following morning to get on the bus that would take them to Kimanjo Mixed Secondary School where Community Day is being held, over an hour drive away. (Blog post on Community Day to come tomorrow)

Once the work was over, it was time to celebrate...

HAPPY AMERICA DAY!

Eunice, the amazing cook at Mpala, prepared an American feast and Nancy and Dan Rubenstein had all of the researchers, grad students and undergrads (about 150 people) up to the ranch house for dinner. It was a great way to relax and meet more of the people living and working at Mpala. Before dinner we had a rousing Frisbee tournament in which much fun was had by all and then we ate until we thought we might explode while watching darkness fall over the breathtaking view that is Mpala.

Happy American Day Flag Cake!

The view from the ranch of Mpala