by Liz Schmutzer
Liz Schmutzer, president of our campus environmental educators’ association, recounts the steps from the creation of the Candlelight Hike education stations through moments of uncertainty and discovery as these students met the public.
Having EENA (Environmental Education and Naturalists Association) help out with the Candlelight hike was an awesome experience. One thing that we absolutely loved was going out to Schmeeckle and carving pumpkins. We had so many people come and had such an amazing time! First, comments of two participants:
“The candlelight hike gave me the opportunity to carve the largest pumpkin of my life. Seriously this thing was so huge I could have made it my home.” – Alaina Allen
“Participating in the Candlelight Hike was a lot of fun! This was my second time attending the event but my first time running an education station and I was astonished to see how many community members came out to support Schmeeckle and the practicum students. I especially loved interacting with the youth that stopped by our booths. Overall it was an amazing night and I can’t wait for the next one!” –Grace Henes
We came up with the ideas for the education stations in one of our meetings based only off of the theme of the hike. Our members had so many good ideas that it was hard to narrow it down to only three ideas! Once we decided on three main topics—light pollution, fireflies, and constellations (with a constellation ring toss)—we split into three groups to work on specific ideas for the activities we wanted to present. We actually had a hard time narrowing down our ideas into something that could be done in a few minutes as visitors walked by! We had such a great time building these booths. These folks are amazing, and we were able to not only make the education stations, but also volunteer for all the booths all night long. All three education stations were run by EENA members!
It was definitely a learning experience! We were panicking a little the night of the hike… Some of us volunteering weren’t in the initial planning groups, so we weren’t quite sure what the stations were exactly. We realized that we never wrote down anything! We didn’t know supplies, what the activity was, or what to talk about! Luckily, our amazing people came in early, and we figured everything out!
Running the stations was super fun and an amazing experience for our members. We got to practice (or do for the first time) working with the public. It’s scary (but exciting) not knowing who will be coming to your booth to talk to you, or what questions they will ask. It was wonderful seeing people’s faces light up (pun intended) as you showed them the activity.
Everyone who had a hand in creating and running these booths agreed that it was a really amazing experience. We’re hoping to come back and help out again!