Girl Power!!

Today Alicia, Jennifer and I presented at an Expanding Your Horizons conference at the College of Coastal Georgia. Expanding Your Horizons encourages and motivates middle school aged girls to get involved in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math through hands on conferences like today which showcase these particular fields and provide female role models in these professions. We had two full sessions of girls participate in our Sea Turtle Rescue 911 class, in which they make a medical diagnosis through investigating a plush sea turtle patient that is based on real patients at the GSTC. These girls were quite impressive, thoroughly enjoyed our program, and made excellent sea turtle doctors!!

Susan Shipman, the first female Director of the Department of Natural Resources was the keynote speaker. Her account of growing up, loving to explore bugs on her way to school, and working all over the world (including Africa, Alaska, Washington, Hawaii to name a few) was very inspiring! Mrs. Shipman is also an UGA Alumna, photographer, scuba diver and honeybee keeper. Needless to say, this woman absolutely fascinated me!! Closing the conference were amazingly talented Jabali African Acrobats from Kenya. It was a great day!

I just love the logo for Expanding Your Horizons! I wish my hair was that cool :-]

AmeriCorps MLK Day of Service

On Saturday January 16th, Albany Police Department AmeriCorps Members joined us for a Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service celebration. Working together we were able to de-weed four diamondback terrapin nesting boxes in preparation for nesting season this spring. A team also went to the local library and distributed educational/interactive packets about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. It was encouraging to hear about their AmeriCorps program and to likewise have them learn about our AmeriCorps program by visiting the Exhibit Gallery, Rehab Pavilion, and meeting the sea turtle patients. We are looking forward to visiting them in Albany!

"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well."

~Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Wednesday evening, January 13th, the GSTC received 13 additional cold stunned sea turtles from Florida. One of my best friends, Paul, was in town visiting during their arrival and was able to lend a helping hand.

Dr. Norton nicked his thumb during all the commotion of examining sea turtles. Albeit a rather small boo-boo a boo-boo is still a boo-boo in my book so I was quick to grab a band-aid and doctor up the Doctor. I was honored and he was humored. Last I checked, he is recovering well!

Paul jumped right in and photographed the sea turtles as part of their identification information. He sure is a fantastic photographer regardless the subject and I was thankful to have him assist us! Amanda and I were at work removing the epibiota (particularly barnacles in this case) from several of the sea turtles.

All in all it was a busy, rewarding, and teachable night. I am thankful and honored to be among people who are so passionate in their work and who care so deeply for this remarkable species.

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

Check out articles about our newest cold stunned/hypothermia patients here:

http://www.wtoctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=11792464

http://www2.wsav.com/sav/weather/storm_center/article/turtles_saved_from_the_cold/84513/

http://www.necn.com/Boston/Nation/2010/01/09/Coldstunned-sea-turtles/1263069136.html

http://jacksonville.com/news/georgia/2010-01-09/story/cold_stunned_sea_turtles_being_treated_at_georgia_center?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+JacksonvillecomGeorgiaNews+(Jacksonville.com:+Georgia+News)