[CINC] July 4th weekend on SCI

[Noel and Kathy Van Slyke]

         Only marine mammals coming and going were common 
dolphins.  The rest of this e-mail is about the new island hike so 
those of you that do not do island hikes may not be interested in the 
rest of this posting.

         The days on the island were great fun.  I had a chance to do 
the new family walk designed for kids and parents 3 times.  Over the 
weekend I led 7 walks so almost half of them were the new walk.  For 
those of you that are trained in this walk, I hope you will try 
it.  I can say this weekend I enjoyed it as much and possibly more 
than the regular walk.  My group sizes for the family walk were 
between  10 and 20.

Some hints  for doing the hike I learned this weekend and reactions 
to the hike
1. It is a great help to have your pictures in the three inner 
envelopes (one for each stop) and those three in a larger envelope 
(10 X 13).  Then you can easily grab the pictures easily for the stops.
2. It is also helpful to have pictures for each stop arranged in 
useful order with rubber bands surrounding  them to keep them in 
order -- then you can pull the pictures out quickly and hand them out 
easily.  Also kids and parents are very good about picking up chips 
and putting them in the bag while you are collecting pictures at the 
first stop.
3. When you start the walk, make sure that you are on the beach side 
of the cave with the door frame. -- If there are visitors that want 
to eat it can work meeting  at that table on the beach side of the 
cave but it is better even closer to the beach.
4. When you get to the cave and ask the kids what they think it was 
used for a lot said housing -- in addition to getting them to get the 
real answer it is a good opportunity to tell them that they did build 
better housing than that but had to adapt by using what they had on 
island and about being self sufficient.  The cave is a big hit as is the well.
5. One thing that surprised me was that in one of the groups the kids 
didn't know what a ranch was -- may need to ask and define.  I cut 
ranching material somewhat but that was expected.
6. If possible and you have a second naturalist it works really well 
to announce what you are going to do (choice of walks) during the orientation.
7. On the fox activity I made a point of addressing all comments to 
Mr. Fox, Miss Golden Eagle etc.  On this one I asked the kids whether 
they wanted to be a good character, a bad character etc. as I gave 
out the roles. Kids seemed to really enjoy that part of the activity. 
Gave the parents the roles that were not very involved.
8. All activities worked pretty much as written.  Out of the three 
groups, I went on to Cavern Point with two of them.  One I ended at 
the campground.  The kids and parents really seemed to enjoy all the 
activities and were able to answer the questions at the end.  One 
family chose to go on the walk and delay their kayaking when they 
heard about it.

Comments I got from parents were as follows:
1.. A parent told me it fit very well and reinforced what they had 
studied in school (for family with three kids -- the comment was 
about 2 of the three-- the third was too young to have had it 
reinforced but the girl enjoyed it anyway)
2. One parent commented that she liked the program because it was so 
interactive -- another liked it because we got down to the kids level.

Anybody having any questions about the walk, please don't hesitate to 
e-mail me individually or phone me.   I am very enthusiastic about 
how it went and hope you will try it and have the fun with it that  I did.

Kathy Van Slyke
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