I have really enjoyed Valley Forge so far. The first day we many rangers and administrators. We were also shown the vehicles and the Ranger Station. The second and third day was spent learning in the Operational Leadership course. Taught by John Waterman and Kate Jensen, the course was designed to educate us about the importance of leadership and teamwork. We learned about types of leadership, accidents and causation, effects of stress and fatigue on ability and decisions, and risk management. In that class, we met more people, including a few rangers from Hopewell Furnace. Hopewell Furnace is a National Park located about 45 minutes west of Valley Forge.
The fourth day we sat in court. Court went pretty quick and not much happened this time, but it was interesting to see how it worked. Later that morning, we went to a meeting about the internet issue at Valley Forge and the circuit issue at the Ranger Station. In the afternoon, we were issued one of the government vechiles and were allowed to drive around the park. We got to see many landmarks and buildings that were and weren't open to the public. We went to places only NPS employees could access. We were also able to see much of the wildlife.
We spent the last day of the week with Resource Management. We helped load the van for the crayfishing event. We went crayfishing with Kate and helped the children crayfish. We were removing the invasive crayfish speices from the creek. After the meeting, we worked with Amy Ruhe on a project to tag deer fawn. This project is being done to monitor the health of the deer in comparsion to the late 90’s when the project was done previously. This project will also help monitor the health of the deer in relation to the deer population. We were able to find two fawn. We learned a lot about the deer and fawn behavioral habits.
I have learned a lot in this past week. I hope you are enjoying our parks as much as we are. Feel free to comment if you have any questions or want to know more.
-Benjamin Amoah
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