Poison Ivy – Identification and Control

Watch out!

Acreage Life - Nebraska

“Leaves of three, let it be!” Remember this rule of thumb to protect yourself from an itchy poison ivy rash this summer! Plants look innocent enough at this point in the season, but handling them is a mistake. All parts of a poison ivy plant – leaves, stems, roots, fruits –contain an oil called urushiol which causes an allergic reaction and rash. The rash can appear within hours of exposure or up to several days later. Sensitivity to urushiol builds up over time, making a once “immune” person susceptible.

Pretty fall color of poison ivy. Image by Richard Gardner, Bugwood.org. 

Identification
“Leaves of three…” is not technically accurate because poison ivy plants,Toxicodendron radicans, have compound leaves and each individual leaf is made up of three smaller parts or leaflets. So, you’re looking for plants with clusters of three leaflets together – two side leaflets and a slightly larger…

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life

Last week I had an epiphany….I realized that the cursive version of the word life was almost a visual metaphor for life! Let me walk you through my epiphany.

When we are writing the word “life” and as we start any new endeavor, we are encouraged to move high and tall, only to come to a summit and fall back to where we started, on the next loop up in life we get excited and move quickly upward, so quickly that we jump to a point and then fall back to the baseline. Our next trip upward is more tentative and floral, and we widen our stroke accordingly, enjoying the travel upward, then back downwards, and whoops, then we fall someplace we haven’t been before…way down below the line. But cautiously and with the help of friends and family we loop our way back up. The final stroke that makes the “e” is practiced and quick, knowing we will loop back to the comforts of the line.

Impact

This morning I received an email from Katie P. who is still working feverishly to help the counties pull together their materials for the Nebraska State Fair. And, while what I’m going to talk about wasn’t the intent of Katie’s email, at the bottom of her email she had a seemingly unobtrusive quote by Forest Witcraft. “One hundred years from now it won’t matter what kind of car I drove, what kind of house I lived in, how much money I had in the bank, nor what my clothes looked like BUT the world may be a little better because, I was important in the life of a child.”

I thought perhaps many of us would benefit from seeing the quote in context which was published in the October 1950 issue of Scouting magazine.

“….I am not a Very Important Man, as importance is commonly rated. I do not have great wealth, control a big business, or occupy a position of great honor or authority.

Yet I may someday mold destiny. For it is within my power to become the most important man in the world in the life of a boy. And every boy is a potential atom bomb in human history.

A humble citizen like myself might have been the Scoutmaster of a Troop in which an undersized unhappy Austrian lad by the name of Adolph might have found a joyous boyhood, full of the ideals of brotherhood, goodwill, and kindness. And the world would have been different.

A humble citizen like myself might have been the organizer of a Scout Troop in which a Russian boy called Joe might have learned the lessons of democratic cooperation.

These men would never have known that they had averted world tragedy, yet actually they would have been among the most important men who ever lived.

All about me are boys. They are the makers of history, the builders of tomorrow. If I can have some part in guiding them up the trails of Scouting, on to the high road of noble character and constructive citizenship, I may prove to be the most important man in their lives, the most important man in my community.

A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove. But the world may be different, because I was important in the life of a boy.”

I know it’s hard sometimes to push forward when we aren’t quite sure what the impact of our work is (in this pandemic environment) or how to assess much less report it….but know this…you are making a difference in the lives of Nebraskans. And that difference may be in ways you may never be able to measure in your lifetime. Keep plugging forward and doing the best you can to assess your impact…but celebrate the invisible impacts that your work will undoubtedly have for decades or perhaps centuries to come.

Thanks Katie for the inspiration!!!!

Why?

I tend to read a lot of books…and well, right now, I’m reading “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. It’s the second time I’ve read this same book…but I am rereading it as it resonated with me last time, and it’s a new version.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned from this book…or rather that really resonated with me…was the following quote: “Let’s face it: if there’s no good reason to be doing something, it’s not worth doing. I’m often stunned by how many people have forgotten why they’re doing what they’re doing–and by how quickly a simple question like, “Why are you doing that?” can get them back on track.” ..I equate David Allen’s why to Susan W’s “So what?”. And, I sort of equate the not having a clear why to why Extension educators might have been so overwhelmed with COVID.

If your mission was clearly defined prior to COVID, COVID would not have changed that mission, only how you went about achieving your mission. I realize that several of us have things we are dealing with that are related to COVID that have been making us sort of pivot a lot (daily perhaps), but our overall personal missions probably have not changed…only our strategies. For instance, if my mission was to drive to Kansas and as I drove I came across a detour due to road construction, it doesn’t mean I would scrap the whole trip, only take a different road. So on the travels of your mission, when you hit the detour that came up due to COVID, how did you figure out an alternate route? Or were you one of the ones that was paralyzed by the COVID detour notification? There are always multiple routes toward achieving our missions…we just need to be nimble and pick the best route at the time, and then alter our route as is needed…but not get totally derailed from detours thrown in front of us.

I recently shared with a colleague of ours that it’s really important to know the why of what you are doing, or you will never stay motivated and excited about your work. Why is it important? Why are you the perfect person for the job of ______? What portion of _____ are you uniquely positioned to contribute to the big why? Why is now the best time to teach _____?” If you can’t answer those questions you are probably going to easily be paralyzed by any small thing that comes along.

If my words give you pause…take your pause and think it through. Why should UNL have hired you? …And how are you contributing to the mission of Extension? What is your Why? How are the actions you take each year contributing toward achieving your why? Who are the researchers in your field that have studied why your why is important? Who are the researchers in your field that have contributed knowledge about how best to address the why of your field? If you can’t answer those questions, I hope that you take some time to pause and figure out your why.

Once you have your why, you can start working on the What, and then the Where of your work. Don’t start with I would love to teach ____ at ____ because it would be fun. Although honestly I have fell for that approach multiple times! Those are one hit wonders! Always start with your why, then work in establishing what content helps you achieve the why (and there probably will be two or three contents that will equally address the why), then figure out the where. Never start from the where and what and then try to figure out why…it’s really hard to sustain those programs…even though many times you will be asked by the public to do it just that way. They usually have a stake in the what and where…but never can tell you why, other than I think that XYZ person would love that. Planning in this way is reactive, much more time consuming, and once the person suggesting this goes away and that program is over, you will be lost with trying to figure out the what next.

The work that we do in Extension is very important and certainly there is enough work that we all need and can contribute in our own ways to the big why of our organization. Only through contributions by a diverse talented group of individuals can we ever achieve the why of Nebraska Extension.

“Helping Nebraskans enhance their lives through research-based education.” -Nebraska Extension’s Mission.

COVID, Football and Extension

COVID, Football, and Extension sounds like I’m starting to tell some bad joke…but not really. I wanted to talk about a football analogy that would relate to our work in Extension.

My work in Extension has a clearly defined mission. Years ago, a young Extension educator asked me how he should define his role in Extension. I told him that he should take time to think specifically about his role in fulfilling Nebraska Extension’s mission…sort of carve out his own personal professional mission, one that could transcend Nebraska Extension and really be his lifelong professional mission. To take the time to do the work to have great clarity around that role so that no matter what came along that he could make rapid adjustments to his actions to accommodate the whatever, but for that whatever not to derail him from working toward his mission.

Through a football lens, I would say it’s like having a team whose ultimate mission is to get a football across the goal line. It’s important to have more than one play in the playbook, and it’s important to know what the A game is, but to also have an instant B game or even C game plan. Because, well, you can plan for, but you really never know for certain that a specific play will work until the play is over. Nor do you ever really know definitively who might get hurt during a play, or be sick that day, or have a personal emergency that precludes a specific player from being on the field. Great quarterbacks check off on their receivers very quickly without losing sight of the ultimate goal of scoring points by moving the ball down the field. They literally make millions of little course corrections throughout the course of a game. BTW…this is what stands us apart from robots. Robots just do the one thing they are programmed to do…people are able to quickly assess and adjust the game plan!

We have to be a little more like a good quarterback. When was the last time you were planning on doing a program and well, everything went perfectly, every supply was available, every registrant ready and excited to learn, every objective of the workshop fulfilled with ease? …Well…if I’m answering that question…truthfully, I don’t think that has ever happened. That’s exactly why I always have a plan B, plan C etc. I can not guarantee that I won’t have a flat tire driving to the workshop (& this has happened), I can not guarantee that it won’t start raining during a solar reactive dye workshop (and this has happened too), so have to plan for an alternate pedagogy of how to teach the same content in a different way.

This is exactly how I approached COVID. Would I have preferred to have done all my teaching online this spring and summer….NO. …But, prior to COVID, had I planned a Plan B….NO…because I had several years of implementing Plan A until I felt like it was pretty darn good. But, did I have the skills and resources to put together a Plan B quickly…YES, absolutely. I knew my target audience well…knew their skills and abilities and where I would be sailing along, and where there might be tidal waves. I also knew who in our organization could help me resolve any anticipated rough waters…and I did not hesitate to contact them.

No, it wasn’t easy, but I was on a mission. Nor was I that astute about how to go about it, but because I was laser focused on my ultimate mission…to teach…I jumped into action and implemented Plan B! And, I wasn’t married to the Plan B either, in fact, I probably ended the summer on Plan L or so….the point is that I was laser focused on my mission of teaching STEM to youth, had selected a subject that I believed would be a marketable STEM subject to youth, and ultimately made a plan on the best pedagogy and marketing plan to deliver that educational opportunity….and I implemented. After each implementation I would take the time to reevaluate and redesign either the pedagogy or marketing as needed. Throughout the course of the spring/summer, I changed my workshops from face-to-face to online. At the same time, I was shifting my marketing to move from a teacher oriented marketing to a parent/youth oriented marketing. I also started signing up individuals rather than whole classrooms as teachers no longer necessarily had access to all of the students in their classrooms. I started mailing materials directly to the students at the same time as my marketing and registration shifted. I didn’t make just one pivot after every implementation…I was open to completely redesigning from the ground up….because it was important work and I wanted to get it right for my clientele….I wanted to fulfill the need.

What I’m saying is that we have to know our professional missions, and not let “things” divert us off course. We only have a limited amount of time…..best to stay laser focused on your professional goals, and call those around you that can help you figure out the gaps in what you know about marketing, implementation, evaluation etc. Just start going down the path toward your mission, and keep watching the compass to make sure you aren’t diverting too far off of the path. And don’t just follow your intuition, or you will not get anywhere, as you will be traveling in circles.

And, will I ever return to Plan A….NO! Why would I? I have learned so much from implementing all of those other plans…now I can implement all sorts of Rube Goldberg style plans that draws upon the best of each part of the implementation plans, and I also have a quick alternative plan if some facet of my program/audience/environment warrants a pivot. And, I also have a repertoire of offerings that are sure to have the right fit for each of my clientele…based upon their needs and preferences.

And, while this will probably be a very unpopular thing to say…sometimes you have to let the voice of your clientele drive your decisions and speak to yourself in quieter tones because we aren’t always the best voice to listen to. AKA Meet the clientele where they are at! …Just stay true to your mission, really take ownership of the why in your profession (know the research that supports your why, and why that specific topic is important to your clientele now), and let the hows (marketing, logistics, and technology) wash over you like water. Your why will help you brace and engage in learning the hows when you need them and at a level sufficient enough not to drown in them.

It’s your mission…choose to implement it!

Communications!

Every once in a while something happens, and the memory of that something lasts for a very long time. And during the communication, and even in the aftermath of the communication, you could clearly see from everyone’s lens exactly what they were thinking/perceiving in their head…but yet, you were powerless to change the future, and absolutely struck at how erroneous the communication was and how misshapen the message was received by one or more parties to the conversation. And sometimes it’s so bad that it’s absolutely comedic! That’s how this went almost a decade ago for me. I’m telling you this story because as I laid trying to go to sleep the other night I was telling my husband a story, and well, as I talked he was falling asleep and would repeat parts of the story, and be so totally wrong in what he “repeated” back to me….that this old story came to my mind!

The story started with my husband texting me a picture of a cake…he was standing at a work party where they were congratulating a person who had just got promoted from an entry level position to an administrative position in a different department with the same company. Her current department had loved working with her and was all in on celebrating her good fortune…so they had ordered a cake for an at work/after hours departmental celebration. When I saw a picture of the cake my response was “Please tell me you weren’t responsible for ordering that cake!” 🙂 …and thankfully he wasn’t responsible…THIS Time!

A supervisor of the person had called a bakery to order the cake…and here’s how that conversation went. I’ll put the Bakery’s dialogue in italics, and the customers dialogue in bold.

	Hello, _____Bakery!
	Hello, I need to order a sheet cake.
	Okay, we have full sheet cakes and 1/2 sheet cakes.
	“I’ll take the 1/2 sheet cake.  And, I would like you to write “Congratulations” on the cake and put some flowers around the edge.
	Okay, is that all you want it to say? There’s a lot of space on there, you could add something else, like “congratulations on your anniversary”, or “congratulations for a job well done”.
	That’s a good idea.  How about you write “Congratulations”, then I guess put “for 5 years” at the bottom.
	Okay..you want it to say “Congratulations”, and then, “for 5 years at the bottom”.
	Yep,…I’ll be down to pick it up tomorrow morning!
	Perfect, we’ll have it ready for you.

And here is an image that represents the final cake (I can’t find my original picture)…..

Now don’t get offended right away…think about how this cake happened. Think about what each person participating in the conversation was thinking. The customer was merely trying to get the words “for 5 years” put below the “Congratulations”, but they used the unfortunate words of “at the bottom”.

And, before your mind starts worrying about how this party went, I’ll clarify. When the customer picked up the cake, they didn’t look at it. They went straight from the bakery to the party, where they proudly opened the cake, then had several frantic moments trying to scrape “at the bottom” off of the cake. The person whose promotion they were celebrating thought the story was hilarious, and well, the supervisor felt awful and plans on ordering her a new cake to celebrate her “for 10 years at the top!”. And, you have to wonder if part of her promotion was her ability to understand how the original cake could have happened, and that it wasn’t some cosmic plan to “get her” or “put her down”! They were all there celebrating her promotion!!!! And her reaction was priceless. She looked at the cake in front of everyone, and just started laughing. My husband, having not seen the cake from his vantage point, was really anxious to see what was in the box…and hence took the picture and texted me.

The point of my story is that we all have miscommunications that happens every day. And, too frequently we blame that miscommunication on the other person involved. It’s really up to all parties involved to remain calm, reserve judgement, and continue to seek clarification until you know that both parties are on the same page with the actions you are seeking. Remember the baker asked for clarification of what was supposed to be on the cake…and it was verified by the person ordering the cake. Using the exact same words to check for clarification however, as you can see, may not be a perfect strategy.

Seek clarification in all important matters!!!!

Isn’t that Obvious?

Like many people, I usually think that what I’m doing is obvious to everyone.  And then this happens!

Recently my husband ordered wood blocks for our grandson…you know…adding something to the order to get free shipping.  He loved playing with blocks as a little kid, so wanted to have them so that the grandkids can enjoy them.

Anyway, the blocks came with instructions!  I thought that was hilarious….and kept them as I have been analyzing this decision to include instructions for a whole week now.

The wooden blocks came in a nice little wooden box with a slide open lid.  To add this simple piece of paper with instructions to the blocks they shrink wrapped the box, then attached a plastic pouch to the side with these instructions neatly folded up inside.  Of course I had to open up the pouch to see what was inside because the shipping receipt was packed loosely in a bigger box along with the wooden box.  And I was delighted to see the “instructions for play”.  The method of packing made me realize that the company had went to great expense to add these instructions to the wooden blocks.  And while I thought it was obvious how to use them….apparently it isn’t to everyone, or the company would not have went to the expense and additional human labor to include the instructions.  

And, I could be a little critical of the instructions….because they could have added some other uses…like the ability to use the blocks for simple classification of items, like by color, or by number/letter.  Or that the “to play” list wasn’t exactly written for a specific audience.  You see if someone is going to learn letters from the blocks, they probably can’t read the instructions.  And if the instructions are written for parents/guardians/babysitters of small children, they didn’t include the age/stages information that would be helpful to go along with the play instructions.  Like toddler may use them to learn the alphabet, numbers, colors etc.  While older children (kindergarten and 1st graders) might use them to do simple math problems or build simple structures, whereas an upper elementary child may use them to build complex structures.  But that’s not really the point I’m trying to make here.

Last week I also shared a lesson plan with an Iowa parent.  I immediately received back a question about how long the lesson plan would take…and I responded with that depends.  You see if you do it this way, it’s a one hour lesson…if you do it this way, it’s a four hour lesson, and if you do it this way, you can stretch it out all summer long. And I looked at my lesson plan and realized that I had not put estimates of time on the lesson plan, nor had I put the variations that I had shared with the parent and how each variation would emphasize a different aspect (scientific concept) of the lesson plan, targeting a little bit different age group, and have a little different expectations about the knowledge level of the participating youth.

But then today it hit me….what I might think is obvious in my area of work, might not be to everyone!  Do we really look at the materials we create from the end users perspective?  Do we pilot these materials with end users and take into consideration their feedback?  Wouldn’t it be cool if we could have Extension curriculum in a database format, so that the end user could enter the age of a participant, subject area interest, or key scientific concepts to learn, or even the area of the state that the participant resided in, and the database would spit back out the perfect lesson plan/workshop designed specifically for that clientele?  ……Making each lesson plan highly relevant to the end user!!!

Isn’t that our ultimate goal?  Using research from the University and boiling it down to consumable, highly relevant, information for our clientele!  Then layering that information with our knowledge about how/who the information is highly relevant to and how it’s relevant….neither error on the side that the clientele obviously know the information and we aren’t programming to their knowledge level nor that we assume they know things that they do not and program beyond their needs or knowledge level.

We know that the greatest opportunity for educational impact occurs at the front edge of the bell curve of knowledge in our expertise area.  So that is the area to program toward.  Because if all we are feeding is obvious solutions or if all we are feeding is beyond the learner…we are diligently programming ourselves into irrelevance?

One small step for Extension, one giant leap for impact!

#GOALS

Why Great Questions are Important!

With the current COVID situation, I moved a couple of my regular Extension programs online.  Yep, it didn’t take a lot of time to think about how the new environment would make teaching the course different, and dare I say, better…but regardless, today was another highlight day!

I just got off of my I Wonder Zoom session…and I have been smiles since.  The 2nd graders that sign up for this workshop are full of questions…and indeed that’s what the workshop is all about, why those 2nd grade questions can sometimes lead to great scientific research questions.  Yes, we discuss that an insect has six legs, and whether butterflies could fly in space if you put them on the international space station in a room filled with oxygen (ANSWER: No, because butterflies actually need gravity to fly). We discuss how crickets make sounds and we even do an experiment to see if we can make cricket sounds by rubbing our legs together.  It’s pretty much a raucous discussion of questions they may have, and if they don’t start throwing some out, I do for them…and we discuss them.

Anyway, at the end of the lesson I ask the kids if they have any additional questions that they would like to ask of the group.  And typically the same four or five questions get asked…but today there was a new one.  It started down the typical path, one kid asked me if I had a favorite insect, then another asked me if I had a favorite animal….but the kicker question was “What is your favorite meat eater?” This gave me pause…you see at first I thought he asked what my favorite meteor was…and well, while I’ve studied a couple meteors, I really wasn’t prepared with a favorite.  I glanced at my husband across the room who said “meat eater”.  But then I was confused because Zoom connections with multiple 2nd graders means greater difficulty in overcoming listening challenges, I asked the kid to repeat and got it that he was asking for my favorite meat eater.  My gut instinct was several different dinosaurs….settling in on velociraptor, I decided that answering it with a dinosaur could possibly open up a bunch of questions that I was definitely not prepared for…like different dinosaurs that I may not know if they were meat or plant eaters.  So, I chickened out and said “Humans”.  Which thankfully and probably more truthfully is my favorite meat eater!  🙂

I love my job because we can connect with real people.  These are real questions that 2nd graders have, no, probably not the most important questions right now…but real questions that kids have and that adults aren’t taking the time to answer.  And that is really sad.  Every answer you give a kid produces three or four more related questions, or clarifying questions.  And, isn’t that awesome?  Somewhere along the line we teach people to not ask questions as sometimes we perceive them as sarcastic or leading in some way….but kids know how to ask good questions….ones that sometimes give adults a great deal of pause to answer. And one of the deepest questions people ask is “why?” Please encourage questions in your work….it’s the only way to assess whether clientele really understand the content…good clarifying questions!  And don’t chicken out when the really good questions come up….those are the treasures, the real means to determine whether our clientele understand what we are discussing.

Does knowing what my favorite meat eater make any difference in my knowing whether my clientele understood the content…no.  But, if I had had the courage to take on the question with my in the moment dinosaur thought process, I would have come to new and interesting content that would have stretched both the kids in the workshop and my own learning as well.  Here’s hoping that next time I don’t chicken out!!!!

Podcast Suggestion: Cult of Pedagogy

Hello!  When I cut my commute time several years ago from 2 hours a day to literally just a few minutes, I sort of dropped my habit of voracious consumption of podcasts.  Now, I have to tell you that I think I need to resurrect that practice.  I’ve found podcasts on literally just about everything…but today I spent some time listening to one of my favorite podcasters….Jennifer Gonzalez.  Jennifer has a podcast called the “Cult of Pedagogy”.  She’s a veteran middle school teacher who now teaches pre-service teachers.  Anyway, I find her podcasts…and her blog, refreshing.  They are relatable and really are helpful in our work at  educators in the informal classroom too!

Today, I would challenge you to download a couple of her podcasts and go for a walk.  Take the ear buds out when you cross the streets…but take a good listen.  It will be rewarding!

Podcast https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/pod/  Podcast #142 on Distance Learning (March 30, 2020) gave some helpful tips on how to move from face-to-face learning to distance learning in our current COVID social distancing phase……And, she keeps it real.  She’s not suggesting things that are not comfortable, and she has suggestions on how to do a reset when you think it’s not going like you want it to!  I think you might find a few of the tools she mentions quite helpful!  I’m thinking about testing out a few of them that were new to me too!

Blog https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/blog/

Innovation In Pedagogy & Technology Symposium

Okay…so I’ve been going to this for years now!  Talked some of my best friends into going with me too!  I find this conference fascinating because, well, you learn lots of information about how our colleagues (UNL, UNK, UNO, UNMC) are using technology and new pedagogies to reach beyond what we’ve done before.  Technically they have sessions on leadership, emerging technology, marketing, instructional design and pedagogy!  It’s yielded new tech and new pedagogies annually for me…but it also has been an opportunity for me to meet people that are great partners for my work in Extension.  Last year I went to a session from UNMC on backwards design…and well, a month later, had the same team of presenters do an online session for Next Generation Extension….they were that good!!!!

Each year this conference has been held in Lincoln…but with the COVID situation, this year the conference is a virtual one on May 12!  To register….https://symposium.nebraska.edu/