Banana patch

Banana patch cleaning. This represents a lead day for ethnobotany. This activity was day one. Odd start and yet it worked rather well. Tossed out a syllabus, did not cover it, opened the knife box, and said, "Let's go" The afternoon was perfect: rainy. The tone was set from the get go. This was necessary as the college is now on a three day add-drop instead of a five day. So day one has to be the wet, muddy day. This pitched the hike back to day three, behind the ethnogarden. And put Nostoc, mosses, into the hike. This term at least, this all worked well. Three field days precede our first classroom day.


Headed out into the rain, the students wondering what they had signed up for. The first day of class is an important day of beginning a relationship, building trust. I give the students machetes and then ask them to follow me out into the jungle in the rain.



Tracy Tom. I was not on camera for this class.



In the image of the legendary John Henry, of railroad spiking fame?



Chelsea working with a knife.



Tilson Jr. working the east side. I think that is probably Tina Sue to his right.



Parkey Mwarike takes on heavy underbrush. My students can swing a machete.



I use a GPS to attempt to locate and identify a banana as Chelsea looks on.



We played a few rounds of "name this green thing".



The green thing in this case was Nepholepis spp., rehdil on Pohnpei, no specific epithet on Kosrae. Now the students are beginning to catch a glimpse of the class ahead. This worked spectacularly as an introduction to ethnobotany.