"The more relaxed you are, the better you are at everything-the better you are with your loved ones, the better you are with enemies, the better you are at your job, the better you are with yourself."
-Bill Murray
-Bill Murray
Field Work 2020-2021
I got a chance to get a feel for fieldwork by joining the Utah State Universities Cougar project. We monitored human interaction with cougars in the Cache Valley area. Cache Valley has developed into Utah's sixth-fastest growing county. As Utah's population expands into natural habitat, it has caused a Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI). A WUI is defined as the area where residential communities and natural areas meet or intermix, often creating a gradient of high residential density that decreases, as the land transitions into wildland areas, to little or no housing density (Radeloff et al. 2005). WUI is a problem because they are hot spots for human-wildlife conflict, as resources and land use are often shared between the two. With the use of trail cameras, we have identified the use patterns of cougars in the forest of Cache National Forest and the town of Cache Valley.
As a volunteer, I helped to set up and take down cameras every month. We would set out on a ten-mile hike every month and rotate the cameras between Smithfield, Logan, and Hyrum. This range gave us a wide area to compare human and cougar relationships. Below are some of the best pictures we caught this season. |
Service Learning at Salt Lake Community College (SLCC)
The project that we were working on was getting Taylorsville City to make it a law to be idle-free like Salt Lake City is. We were going to start research on the effects Salt Lake saw when they implemented this law, these were going to be things like how did it effect the poor, how did it effect health, how has it effected money and others similar to that. I made a Google Docs space for everyone to pile their research and form what we were going to say in our 2 minutes at the podium at the next Taylorsville City Hall meeting.
The major goal was that if we could get Taylorsville to implement that law then we could cut down those who idled on campus, this would decrease air pollution as well as save them money on gas. This unfortunately never came into being as most public spaces were closed done due to COVID-19. I have served the community a lot in my lifetime as I used to be apart of my own city council, or rather a small branch of it called Youth City Council and that got me familiar with how cities run their meetings. Upon creation of this club I never even thought we would have gotten as far as we did but I am so happy we all centered around one goal and wanted to make a difference, we even had an idea for what to do with the funds from tickets of idlers. If we got to the point where we could ticket people who idle we wanted to them approach the college and see if they would invest that money in nap pods, this would be more of an incentive for students to sleep inside instead of in their car causing them to idle in order to stay warm. Now that we can no longer continue club meetings, I feel a bit relieved as this was starting to interfere with my schoolwork, but I am also sad at how far we got but we never made an impact. But this experience does renew the sense that you can find people who are as passionate as I am and together, we can move to a difference.
It’s hard to decide what makes me uncomfortable when working with a community because I’ve done it so often, but I would say that the biggest discomfort would be not knowing how the adults will react to a young person prompting them to change something that they may not see as a problem, especially when this particular young person (me) doesn’t even live in Taylorsville. But I strongly feel that it shouldn’t matter where you live, we all breath the same air and if someone cares about something that virtually wouldn’t cost the city anything, I can’t see why they wouldn’t want to do it.
The skills I have used are a lot I made through taking a concurrent enrollment class in high school, it was a business class that helped with things like talking in public and making appealing marketing. I’m also glad I have a sister minoring in business marketing so she can help with things like the club flyer. I also learned how important it is to be organized so things don’t slip through the cracks, and I created a great way to keep track of all the time spent in club meetings and making sure everyone who wanted to be on the email list was in a specific email group in my contact book, this ensured no one was missed when sending it out as well as saving me time from having to write every email. These skills can be presented on a resume as time management skills and organizational skills, employers want pay role to be used as effectively as possible so if you are a good get the point employee it can help you gain favor. This also shows that I’m not afraid to oversee managing a group of people and this is great for manager positions.
As I graduate from SLCC this semester I am not sure if an environmental club will ever take off and the dream for them to be idle free may never be seen. However, once this pandemic is over it’s possible, I can see who might be interested in doing this over the summer, not so much as a club but as individuals. When I go to Utah State, I will be majoring in Environmental Studies, so I do plan on keeping this apart of my life forever and maybe I’ll be able to make a big difference up in Logan. Because of my service-learning, I am excited to see what people can accomplish and I know how hard it is to run a club and be the dreamer and driving force behind it.
The major goal was that if we could get Taylorsville to implement that law then we could cut down those who idled on campus, this would decrease air pollution as well as save them money on gas. This unfortunately never came into being as most public spaces were closed done due to COVID-19. I have served the community a lot in my lifetime as I used to be apart of my own city council, or rather a small branch of it called Youth City Council and that got me familiar with how cities run their meetings. Upon creation of this club I never even thought we would have gotten as far as we did but I am so happy we all centered around one goal and wanted to make a difference, we even had an idea for what to do with the funds from tickets of idlers. If we got to the point where we could ticket people who idle we wanted to them approach the college and see if they would invest that money in nap pods, this would be more of an incentive for students to sleep inside instead of in their car causing them to idle in order to stay warm. Now that we can no longer continue club meetings, I feel a bit relieved as this was starting to interfere with my schoolwork, but I am also sad at how far we got but we never made an impact. But this experience does renew the sense that you can find people who are as passionate as I am and together, we can move to a difference.
It’s hard to decide what makes me uncomfortable when working with a community because I’ve done it so often, but I would say that the biggest discomfort would be not knowing how the adults will react to a young person prompting them to change something that they may not see as a problem, especially when this particular young person (me) doesn’t even live in Taylorsville. But I strongly feel that it shouldn’t matter where you live, we all breath the same air and if someone cares about something that virtually wouldn’t cost the city anything, I can’t see why they wouldn’t want to do it.
The skills I have used are a lot I made through taking a concurrent enrollment class in high school, it was a business class that helped with things like talking in public and making appealing marketing. I’m also glad I have a sister minoring in business marketing so she can help with things like the club flyer. I also learned how important it is to be organized so things don’t slip through the cracks, and I created a great way to keep track of all the time spent in club meetings and making sure everyone who wanted to be on the email list was in a specific email group in my contact book, this ensured no one was missed when sending it out as well as saving me time from having to write every email. These skills can be presented on a resume as time management skills and organizational skills, employers want pay role to be used as effectively as possible so if you are a good get the point employee it can help you gain favor. This also shows that I’m not afraid to oversee managing a group of people and this is great for manager positions.
As I graduate from SLCC this semester I am not sure if an environmental club will ever take off and the dream for them to be idle free may never be seen. However, once this pandemic is over it’s possible, I can see who might be interested in doing this over the summer, not so much as a club but as individuals. When I go to Utah State, I will be majoring in Environmental Studies, so I do plan on keeping this apart of my life forever and maybe I’ll be able to make a big difference up in Logan. Because of my service-learning, I am excited to see what people can accomplish and I know how hard it is to run a club and be the dreamer and driving force behind it.
Volunteer
I have been a member in the Cottonwood Heights Youth City Council (YCC) for four years. We did a number of things including learning about our city and how it works, giving a young view point on proposed changes, and helped run city events like Bark in the Park and Butlerville Days. Through this I have made friends at city hall and have had dinner with the mayor three times. At the end of the year the council gets to attend a leadership conference at Utah State University. For my English 2010 class I wrote a paper on one of the events I did in YCC, this even was out annual Easter Egg Hunt for families.
In 2015 I became a docent at Utah's Hogle Zoo and volunteered for four years. As a docent I have to work with the most dangerous animal on Earth... humans! I stand next to the animal enclosures and interpret. This means I talk about how these animals live in the wild and raise awareness for animals that are endangered and talk about how we can all do our part to help them out. In this picture I am feeding our male reticulated giraffe Riley, he is a really important contributor to our zoo and other zoos in the United States. He is apart of the species survival plan, zoos that are apart of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums all have their eligible animals put in the species survival plan which ensures we will have healthy animals in our zoos; this plan prevents inbreeding and plans family trees 50 years in advance. |
Starting My Business
In 2017 I started my own pet sitting business called Kat Cares Pet Sitting. I wanted to start my business because earlier that year my grandfathers dog died and I realized how much I missed having a pet in my life. From a young age I have always had a love and passion for animals , this passion was not shared with my parents however. Being a pet sitter allows we to get the pet love I need while helping me pay for college, what could be better! It also lets me use my leadership skills I've acquired through the course of High School and Youth City Council.
High School Graduation
I graduated from Brighton High School on June 12, 2018 and I had the privilege to speak at graduation. I was not the valedictorian or the salutatorian, instead I tried out to be able to get this privilege. I had been thinking about doing this since Sophomore year when I heard them say it on the announcements. Then when senior year came around so many other perfect things happened to make the year amazing that I knew I had to try out to close out a perfect year. Out of ten other applicants this other girl and I got chosen. I was so exited and proud to have been able to get the privilege, below I have linked the video my dad recorded of me delivering the speech. It's not great audio since the Maverick Center has a horrible echo but I hope you can hear the words and the meaning through the echo.