Kaitlin Ellingsen's GIV Page
Right now I am @ a Governor's Institute of Vermont for Science and Technology. My home group is Brownell Mtn. I attend Wilmington High School in Wilmington, Vermont. We are located in the Mt. Snow Valley. It has grades 6-12 and is REALLY small. About thirty or forty pupils per class. Today, the first day, all we really did was take tours of the sites and learn names. Oh and we hiked...and hiked...and hiked.
My favorite kind of music is alternative Christian. Audio Adrenaline, DC Talk and Jars of Clay are some of the sweet ones. I like FIF, MXPX, and oh John Elefante. I have one brother that just graduated high school. My family has three dogs, one cat and a really old goldfish. KEF is my best bud. My complete role model is a counselor from camp, KJ. Not sure if she would want me to use her name here, so those are her initials.
Monday-We
hiked up the 
other side of Brownell Mountain. Some of the group collected samples
and plotted the location where they were found. I was in this group. We
found a bunch of bugs. Our first specimen, a slug, we drowned in the bug
container in order to view it through the SEM (scanning electron microscope).
I found a branch covered with fungi. We learned that fungi can be quite
diverse and in color. We found white and pink. For my group I decided that
I wanted to deal with living things.
Tuesday-I joined the group collecting plants. We found ferns and flowering plants. On Tuesday, the staff at each site switched in order to give the students more expertise. Right in the beginning, it started to downpour on us. Since we were just soaked and there was thunder, no lightning, we kept climbing Brownell. Sara, a soil expert, joined us in the morning. We took soil samples amid the hemlocks and at the vernal pool. We started to use the plant guide to identify the plants.
Wednesday-Instead
of our earlier approach, which ended up with dry, shriveled plants, we decided
to identify and press the plants as we hiked. Mostly, we got all the ferns.
Approximately 12 kinds. In the afternoon we had electives. I went to Ben&Jerry's.
We sorted through ice cream and learned how the seconds are different than
the kind that you find in a store. For instance, one had too much marshmallow
and another too little caramel.
Thursday-Above is what we did today. We mounted the flowers. With a 50/50 mix of glue and water, we attached them to a heavy paper. This process is very time-consuming. Next we are going to the SEM. Tonight we go swimming and a barbecue.
Friday-This morning we went out to the field to do final touches. Other than electives, the rest of the time was devoted to our final projects. We did a website, labeled our mounted flowers and are currently doing our book. Did I mention that it is after 11 o' clock? lol.
Saturday-We went back to the sites and showed the other groups what we did. Then we hiked Mt. Mansfield. A lot of people stayed up real late and watched movies.
Sunday-We had a late breakfast. Then we met with our groups and got ready for our presentations.