Grace's Restoration Reflection

I wasn't sure what to expect when I arrived at the Glacial Park Restoration Center. As soon as we got out of the bus and stepped into the building I witnessed a stuffed coyote. I thought to myself jokingly, "so is this what we're going to restoring?" I thought it was so funny, I had to take a picture with it. I was also surprised with one thing. The place had wi-fi. I honestly thought that in a this large field, 

there would not be any internet connection. It was a funny thought. 
    When we walked out of the building, we listened to the ecologist speaking about what we were going to do for the rest of the day and what the motto is at the center. He stated that the point of ecological restoration is to speed up the process of restoring what nature would restore in a much longer time span because humans are degrading faster the nature can reproduce. Therefore, we were there to help restore nature quicker. 
    After walking the a beautiful and mesmerizing field of ups and downs, we split up into groups, and I was in the group to remove invasive species in the forest. At first, I couldn't tell the difference between what was hurting the trees and what was helping it. I decided to just cut down everything but the big oak trees. I hope for the most part, that helped out the trees. Although it took a lot of physical labor,
 I had a lot of fun. When our group had finished, I 
truly saw the difference we made. Before the forest
 was very dull and the trees were barely getting 
sunlight. Now the forest was incredibly open and the
 sun was blazing. I felt really good. I felt like I really
 did something to help nature and the ecosystem. 
After taking some pictures, we moved on to the 
next site.

 


At this next stop, I saw a couple of shrubs planted in a field. Our job was to water them. They did not get water from nature in over a week, so it was our job to help speed up the process. Everyone got a gallon of water and found a dry plant to fill up. After this, we planted acorns. That was my favorite part. We learned about how squirrels find these acorns and disperse them around the forest. Without knowing, these two species shared a relationship. But for some reason, the squirrels did not come to this area, so oak trees were scarce. As our job to restore, we planted a thousand acorns in the field, one by one. I had to take my time digging up a hole and planting one specific acorn at a time, but I felt like I contributed more. I was just imagining that it would be my acorn that I planted to grow and become a huge oak tree. I really enjoyed it. 

 
After finishing up at this site, we were on our way to the bus. I could not stop thinking about how much I learned at this field trip. It was a give and take relationship. I was helping to restore nature, while nature was teaching me. I honestly felt great afterwards, and learned a lot from this experience!  

My Restore the Forest Team! =)