By: Aileen Palma

This week was a pretty busy week for me, even having Monday off. I only have every other Monday off because I work a 5-4/9 schedule, which means I work 5 days one week working 9 hours a day, and the next week working 4 days and 9 hours a day. Anyway, the week has still been busy. The YCC SOAR interns are busy shadowing and preparing programs for the summer, and I get to assist with them. I love that we can all bounce ideas off each other to develop a really awesome program. I am very happy that our interns are all pretty much doing a different program. We have one doing a History Walk, two doing a Critter Chat, one doing a Nature Walk, and another doing a Fossil Walk. So, we have a variety, which is really exciting because I get to learn about all of their programs! I may even create my own! I think I would consider doing a Nature Walk. They are two hours long and take a nice walk from our headquarters to the rim. And I love nature, so I think I could talk about it for two hours. I will keep you all updated, though!

Junior Rangers being sworn in by a YCC SOAR Intern

I am also busy creating the first ever Latino Conservation Week event here at the Grand Canyon! I am starting a bit late, but I have a really great team to help me (and interns that I can force to help-hehe) so I don’t feel as stressed. It is a ton of work to create an event, but there are things I don’t have to worry about which is nice. I don’t have to worry about permits or volunteers or not having any cool stickers to pass out. So wish me luck! More updates to come on the event.

Using the glasses to look at the sun

Our Education Day for this week is Astronomy Day. The park has a bunch of astronomers here this week for the week-long Star Party! We got to look at the sun with some special telescopes that allowed us to see a prominence and its sunspots. Then we got to see Venus during the day, since it isn’t out at night during this time of the year. Afterwards we got some glasses and built a device to view the eclipse in August! We then got to hear some fun presentations about the sun, planets, technology, and to even hold some meteorites! Overall it was a really fun day, and I think there was a good balance of walking around and sitting.

Different types of meteorites

Looking at Venus!

That’s all for this week!