Expanding Your Horizons

Friday night, my ball python, Monty, and I packed up and went to Science City to introduce 50 middle-school girls to herpetology (the study of reptiles and amphibians).  We were one of several sessions in a great program called "Expanding Your Horizons" that introduces young girls to Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields.  The girls all fell in love with Monty, including those who "hated" snakes initially, and enjoyed learning about him and the other herps at the Nature Center in Science City.  They also had a chance to pick up stuffed or rubber snakes with snake tongs to practice their skills.  Some of the girls are pictured here (with permission).

Service Trip Meeting

In March I will have the singular honor of serving as a Companion on our Rockhurst service immersion trip to Belize.  This will be my fourth service trip with the university, and my third to Belize.  I look very forward to seeing the people of Belize again, and to exposing 12 of our best students to this amazing country.  Yesterday, we had our all-group service trip meeting, at which the Counseling Center talked us through the results of our Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test (experientially, as you can see from the picture, where we are all lining up in accordance with our MBTI results).  If you have ever found Waldo, you should be able to pick me out in this picture...

Presentation on the Evolution of Flight

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a talk by Dr. David Burnham entitled "A Three-Point Landing for the Origin of Flight: Four-Winged Wonders."  The presentation was based on recent fossil evidence from China indicating that the first "birds" (the definition is under some debate in the paleontological world) had pelvic wings in addition to the typical pectoral wings (see picture). They are thought to have been tree-dwellers who fed on other birds.  Pretty cool.  It was a fascinating talk and I plan to go to his next presentation on February 10th.  It will be at 1:00pm in Haag Hall on the UMKC campus if you're interested in attending!