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We had a great time. The students were able to come up with some great ideas, and rocked their presentations. Our favorite moments were seeing the wildlife, creating our presentations and of course the snacks. Our hope was to see a beaver on our nature hikes, which was a wish come true! We were so lucky to get to see a ton of wildlife, making this experience extra special and memorable.

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We looked critically at our top ideas to determine if they were new ideas, useful and feasible. This helped us narrow down to a few ideas.

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We have two great ideas that we "blossomed" with the Lotus Protocol. This helped us to develop our ideas.

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Each group got together to reflect on their Lotus ideas, and come up with an official idea. Then we gave our idea a name.

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We used a storyboard to draw out our final idea before prototyping.

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We had a visit from Mr. Harris, who is the Dean of Students at Holland Middle School. We got to give a quick pitch of our idea to Mr. Harris, and he gave us some great feedback to help us refine our idea.

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Students started brainstorming ideas by writing 1 idea down onto a notecard. They then passed that to the next person, who added onto their ideas. We continued around the circle until students got their original idea back!

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Students looked at their ideas from the 100 ideas and sorted them into groups of ideas that were similar.

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But dot voting, we were able to limit down our ideas to the ones that were our favorites.

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We are working through understanding who all is affected by this problem and looked for connections between these stakeholders.

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We used the Stanley cups to make connections with one another. We started in a circle. The first person had a ball of string, and said their name and one thing about themselves. They held onto the string, and passed the ball of string to a new person. We repeated this many times, learning that we have so many connections with one another!

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Teamwork and collaboration are so important to our project. We will be celebrating our ideas throughout camp, so we started with each person sharing a "win" they have had recently, and we all gave up a cheer! #Whoo-hoo! #TeamHemlock

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Now that we know everyone, it is time for some fun. We stopped to play a round of Rock, Paper, Scissors...tournament style! #TeamHemlock

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We invited the families, park staff, and Future Prep'd staff to listen to presentations. This gave students a great audience of people to hear their ideas.

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Students received feedback during the elevator pitch, which allowed them to fine tune their idea and build an even better final presentation. After the final presentation we got additional feedback. Overall, the feedback was very positive and they loved our ideas. They were impressed with our teamwork.

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Team 1: Adventurous Scavenger Hunt

Team 1 wants to bring lots of people here to Hemlock Crossing to help weed out invasive species. In order to get people here and excited, they came up with the idea of a volunteer event that included a fun scavenger hunt! There will be prizes and a ton of fun.

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With this protocol students were able to build empathy by thinking of all the plants, animals and humans affected by invasive species.

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We worked on identifying how we are thinking and feeling about this experience. We got our fears out, and worked on coming up with a list of norms to make sure our hopes come true and our fears are squashed.

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Sorry, we can not tell too much about our secret handshake. Just know that we worked as a team! #SecretHandshake #TeamHemlock

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"I really liked seeing all the animals here." - Natalie

"This group of kids did a great job generating ideas. They are creative thinkers, and great problem solvers. I really enjoyed spending the week with them!" -Mrs. Harris, Team Facilitator

"I liked planning out the presentation." -Adaline

"I was not here much, (due to illness), but I pretty much liked making the posters!" -Scott

"Going on hikes was fun." -Quinn

"The Elevator Pitches were great. They had great ideas and did a good job presenting even with just a short time to prepare. The teamwork was very evident." -Mr. Harris, Holland Middle School Dean of Students

"My favorite was the learning games. I liked those a lot." -Caroline

"I enjoyed going on the nature hikes." - Morgan

"I loved watching students get more comfortable sharing ideas and seeing the way they encouraged each other to make sure all ideas were heard and truly discussed in a productive way" - Mr. Sweet, Team Facilitator

"Going into the bird room the first time was cool." - Ryker

"I think the bird room was cool." -Theo

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Students enjoyed choosing their project idea, what they wanted to create, and how they wanted to be a part of the presentation. This gave students many choices and allowed them each to shine in their own way!

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Team 2: Species Spies

Team 2 came up with an app to help visitors document where they see invasive species while out on the trail. The app could have a free version, which will have a map where the visitors can drop a pin where they think they have spotted an invasive species. The workers can then go to that spot to pull it. There will also be photos to help people identify them. The paid version will bring money to the park, and will incentivize people to drop pins to earn points to use as prizes.

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Thinking about our feelings, on Monday we wrote a hashtag on how we are feeling about camp and our driving question.

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To continue building empathy we stopped at a nature outlook and imagined ourselves as an animal in this forest. We imagined how that animal may be affected by the invasive species.

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Tuesday we reflected on our feelings about where we at on our project and drew an Emoji to show our thinking.

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Reflecting on our ideas, we thought about likes and wishes.

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Visiting the bird room taught us that Invasive Species are not just plants, but also animals. The bird feeders are empty all across Hemlock! We found out that certain insects are hitchhikers on migratory birds and are killing the Hemlock trees. Therefore, the birdfeeders are put away until fall, to keep birds from visiting in large numbers.

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After meeting with Mr. Harris, we took time to reflect on our presentations and what we can do to make it better.

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We already have some expert thoughts on invasive species! However, we have a lot of questions about invasive species. Tomorrow we will have a chance to learn from an expert the answers to these questions.

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We were not able to have the Ottawa County Parks expert in to see us, so we instead Mrs. Harris was able to get a video interview! We watched this interview to answer our questions from yesterday.

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We spent time journaling in nature. We looked for plants that may not belong, and even saw a hawk, signs of beavers in the area, many insects and so much more!

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After the presentation students took a few moments to reflect on their experience. They got to write down 2 stars, or 2 things they enjoyed during this experience, and 1 thing they wish for if they could do it all again. This gave students a chance to think back over the week, and all that they have accomplished.

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Students read about 1 of the two major species of plant affecting Hemlock Crossing. Then we went for a hike to see if we could find them in the wild. We learned it was much harder than we thought to identify these plants in the real world.

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We reflected on how we are feeling, and recording our moods in our journals. #Excited #InvasiveSpeciesProblem #ItIsHotOutHere

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Students worked to brainstorm 100 ideas on their own to solve our driving question.

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We ended our day with a journal activity where we reflected on what we learned today, and thinking about where we are going tomorrow.