_Lessons from an Inchneumon
Anyone who has seen an Ichneumon understands how it makes one begin to believe that we truly do have aliens in our very presence. The first time I "met" an Ichnuemon, face to posterior, was in Grafton Notch, Maine. I was a trail crew leader and had been working with this particular trail crew of six people on a trail reconstruction project for the last 3 months. A leader of younger people in the backcountry fills many roles in a day: supervisor, cook, motivator, listener, quality controller, and teacher. This particular trail volunteer program allowed for time during work for education, 2 hours each week. This was often spent at local museums, local historic places, and other more packaged, structured settings of learning experience. However, the day that Ichnuemons and the possibilities of aliens entered our lives was one of those "teachable moments" that appear in life, sought after and relished particularly by outdoor and experiential educators.
Just after a trailside lunch break, with sun filtering through the high canopy of a mature hardwood forest, we were drawn out of our own work re-focusing processes by a short, yelp type yell from my co-leader, who was not known to raise his voice. This is not a noise that a leader wants to hear, so I immediately came over to investigate the source of disturbance. Everything was fine, as he was only startled by a strange creature he noticed on a nearby standing dead log. As people who had spent years in the woods, working, living, and learning about the area, none of us had ever seen such a thing. We called the entire trail crew over and watched what was happening.
The creature looked like a very, very large wasp, with a thin appendage. The insect (we were pretty sure it was an insect) engaged in some sort of posture that looked like a cross between a yogi back bend, and piece of drilling heavy machinery with antennae stabilizers engaged, drilling into the dead tree. We watched for over half and hour as the appendage slowly disappeared into the tree, and then was slowly withdrawn, and the creature flew away. After those in the flight path ducked, we stood in questioning awe about what we had just witnessed.
We went back to work, guessing and guessing, until we returned to camp that evening and took turns looking through the insect field guide. Finally, we found it: an Ichneumon (though we weren't quite sure how to pronounce it). I had never been able to get my crew this excited about the packaged educational experiences, and here they were, arguing about insect body part names and waiting for their turn to look at the field guide. It turned out that the Ichneumon is a parasitic wasp and we had witnessed a female laying an egg into a dead log where her antennas had felt the vibration of a wood boring insect (her larvae's soon to be parasitic host) boring away. Though the entire summer and project proved to turn out wonderfully, that very experience and the learning that was involved in it was counted as a highlight of the summer. That experience enabled me to see the embodiment of excitement for learning that I love so much. It left me thinking, if only I could get them that excited about work...
Anyone who has seen an Ichneumon understands how it makes one begin to believe that we truly do have aliens in our very presence. The first time I "met" an Ichnuemon, face to posterior, was in Grafton Notch, Maine. I was a trail crew leader and had been working with this particular trail crew of six people on a trail reconstruction project for the last 3 months. A leader of younger people in the backcountry fills many roles in a day: supervisor, cook, motivator, listener, quality controller, and teacher. This particular trail volunteer program allowed for time during work for education, 2 hours each week. This was often spent at local museums, local historic places, and other more packaged, structured settings of learning experience. However, the day that Ichnuemons and the possibilities of aliens entered our lives was one of those "teachable moments" that appear in life, sought after and relished particularly by outdoor and experiential educators.
Just after a trailside lunch break, with sun filtering through the high canopy of a mature hardwood forest, we were drawn out of our own work re-focusing processes by a short, yelp type yell from my co-leader, who was not known to raise his voice. This is not a noise that a leader wants to hear, so I immediately came over to investigate the source of disturbance. Everything was fine, as he was only startled by a strange creature he noticed on a nearby standing dead log. As people who had spent years in the woods, working, living, and learning about the area, none of us had ever seen such a thing. We called the entire trail crew over and watched what was happening.
The creature looked like a very, very large wasp, with a thin appendage. The insect (we were pretty sure it was an insect) engaged in some sort of posture that looked like a cross between a yogi back bend, and piece of drilling heavy machinery with antennae stabilizers engaged, drilling into the dead tree. We watched for over half and hour as the appendage slowly disappeared into the tree, and then was slowly withdrawn, and the creature flew away. After those in the flight path ducked, we stood in questioning awe about what we had just witnessed.
We went back to work, guessing and guessing, until we returned to camp that evening and took turns looking through the insect field guide. Finally, we found it: an Ichneumon (though we weren't quite sure how to pronounce it). I had never been able to get my crew this excited about the packaged educational experiences, and here they were, arguing about insect body part names and waiting for their turn to look at the field guide. It turned out that the Ichneumon is a parasitic wasp and we had witnessed a female laying an egg into a dead log where her antennas had felt the vibration of a wood boring insect (her larvae's soon to be parasitic host) boring away. Though the entire summer and project proved to turn out wonderfully, that very experience and the learning that was involved in it was counted as a highlight of the summer. That experience enabled me to see the embodiment of excitement for learning that I love so much. It left me thinking, if only I could get them that excited about work...