16 Jun Outreach into the World

Hello all! It was another week of firsts for me. Last Friday night we had the Full Moon Night I mentioned last week, and it went well! I did parking duty, but was still able to go over and see and hear the band play for a little bit. We had more people come than was expected, and the dunes were covered with families enjoying the music and the special opportunity to be in the park after dark.

Also, one of my duties here over the summer is to give a formal program one day a week in the evening called Sunset Strolls, where I give a one hour talk around the dunes telling a group about the geology, flora, and fauna in the park. It was a big group that showed up, about 25, and I remembered pretty much all my facts, but with practice I know it’ll be more fluid. I also did another program that I have to do called Skins and Skulls, where I do a more informal talk with visitors that stop by and talk about the animals that can be found in or around the park, using pelts that were donated a couple of years ago and skulls to show them what the animals actually look like. It was great to talk to the young ones and have them see how soft the pelt of the native Kit Fox is. The most recent new event was today, when 11 girls from Las Cruces came to White Sands through the Every Kid In a Park program (EKIP) of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and National Park Service (NPS). This program is focused on giving all fourth graders a free pass to all federal lands, and the main thing that I planned to do with them was a puppet show on the history of the park’s formation. They seemed to have fun, and I know I did making up voices for them even though I hadn’t done anything like this in a long time. I have my outreach event next week, too, and that is my big project where Upward Bound students from El Paso will be coming to learn about careers here at the park and will get to just have fun in the dunes. I really hope that one goes well too. Hasta la proxima, ~Angelica