For as long as I can remember, all
things I have ever truly loved doing have always involved some measure of
getting dirty and sweaty. From playing
in (and eating) the dirt in my mother’s garden as a chubby 2-year-old to hot
days of breathing in the scent of horses and saddle soap as a young equestrian
and finally to my love of running and hiking today, I have always been most
happy when I am completely immersed in the physical environment around me.
As an extremely tactile learner,
experiences that have involved all of my physical senses have always been the
ones that have taught me the most, as I have been lucky enough to engage in
here in Wisconsin. From smelling fresh
handfuls of dirt (but now that I am older, remembering not to eat it) on
evening farm tours to watching how the dew of knee-high grass parting in front
of me melts and dissipates as I walk through open fields along the farms we
have visited, every chance I can get to better understand the dynamics of the
Red Cedar ecosystem has been unmeasurably improved by getting right into the
thick of it… quite literally.
Driving around over the past week
to visit farmers to distribute the surveys that we are using to complete our
social analysis framework of our project, I found myself needing to adapt my
cravings for physical activity in a different way in order to keep learning the
way I know works best for me. The long
hours spent in the car have encouraged me to continue exploring the environment
I am inhabiting this summer by the way of impromptu swims in the lakes that our
group is working so hard to understand and speeding along on the highest gears
of my bike to race home before the stillness of heavy afternoon air translates itself
into fat raindrops and thunderclaps. Now
whenever I hear from farmers just how extreme the wetness of the early spring
and summer seasons have been this year specifically, I can remember my own
shock at the intensity and energy of the rainstorms I have been caught in since
being here.
Not long ago, an opportunity for
yet another kind of this physical learning came up when the biology team of our
LAKES group needed help assembling a raft of phosphorus-absorbing plants. Along with a few others, I was charged with
attaching collard greens securely to their raft with wire and zip ties and
helping to launch it in the waters of Lake Menomin. Getting to wade in the murky water that day
with the biology team provided excellent motivation for my own research in
surveying farmers’ perceptions about water quality in more ways than I could
have imagined—I am so grateful that the LAKES program encourages the kind of
interdisciplinary approach that allows this collaboration to happen.
These moments of dirt, sweat,
wetness, and discomfort (all very temporary effects I must add) are what
continue to fuel my curiosity for learning more about this town and its natural
landscape. As a testament to the
“learning by doing” strategy, now whenever I am in the midst of a survey with a
farmer who is telling me about how the soil quality on his farm has changed
drastically over the years, I can recall just how the Wisconsin soil that I
have had the opportunity to crumble in my own palms felt and smelled. That alone feels invaluable to me.
What I am slowly discovering for
myself is that these stories and patterns that I am gathering this summer are
only as useful as the experiences I can manage to relate them to in my
head. This is why I am determined to
push myself to be a part of everything that I can during my summer in
Menomonie. Fortunately enough, the LAKES
program and the Menomonie community at large has been more than inviting and
inspiring in guiding me towards the experiences I rely on for my education,
both socially and scientifically. I can
only grow more excited for the weeks to come.
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