Group Statement: Group Response

Our project focuses on the connection between love and science, more so fieldwork, using our experiences from bird watching over the last few weeks. We spent time on the south waterfront as a group and spent time with Portland's birds. After each observation we spent time reflecting, thinking about Ken's answers and how we feel about our work.  This was to help us try to find joy in research so we could more closely relate to Ken’s answer. We used photography to track our progress throughout the project. The end goal in this project was to build an emotional connection to research to help build on the concept of slowing down and appreciating our surroundings.

Throughout the project our attitudes towards our work changed drastically. The original negativity we had towards our project seemed to falter after the first week. “I started looking forward to the next outing we were going to have as a group” (Lavender) By the second week we had spent almost double the amount of time we did the first week at the waterfront, we learned more about each other's goals in college and saw some beautiful birds. By the third week it felt like second nature, we didn’t have to talk to pass time throughout the observation and just sat and watched the birds. “This felt mentally freeing after the stress of the school week”(Sadiki)

This project had an interesting effect. We all related to Ken’s responses a lot more than we expected. The end goal with this project was to show the mental benefit of calming down and experiencing things at face value. These last few weeks proved to be a benefitting experience for all of us. “We learned how much people can gain from slowing down and paying attention to the natural world, even in a busy city like Portland.”(Tracee)