What is Energy?

Energy is something that you can have in your body or something that can power things.  Energy in your body can make you go fast, or it can be used to power a light bulb. Energy can be the build up of a roller coaster or the drop. There are two kinds of energy, kinetic and potential.

Capstone Blog #6

My overall experience with Capstone has been great. I learned a lot about service dogs and it was very interesting. I liked getting new information and learning about service dogs. In my script, I talk about how service dogs are trained and how they help blind people and handicapped people, the top 10 breeds of service dogs, and more. For my slideshow I used a lot of images off the web. I tried to use photos of my dog but I wasn’t allowed to because she isn’t a service dog. Now that I have finished my script and my slideshow, all I have left to do is memorize my script. To memorize my script, I put it on flashcards and read it out loud while projecting the slide show. It is hard to memorize my script, I still haven’t finished memorizing my whole script. I have to time my script because the limit is 6 minutes. When I timed my script, it went to 5 minutes and 34 seconds. This is good because it’s just the amount of time I needed. Overall capstone has taught me a lot I didn’t know about service dogs and this has been my second favorite project of the year.

Capstone Blog #5

Have you ever wondered about how service dogs are trained? I wanted to learn about service dogs for my capstone. My main inquiry question is how are service dogs trained and how do they help their owners. To answer this question, I had to do a lot of research. I read articles, searched YouTube, interviewed people and did a site visit to a service dog walkathon. Service dogs are trained when they are 8 -12weeks old. They are sent to a foster puppy raiser where they learn to behave and to socialize with people. They go back to a training school where they are taught all sorts of commands to help the person that needs help. After they are trained, they are assigned an owner by their disability and by their personality. If the person is blind, the dog will help them cross the street and guide them around places. If they are assigned to an autistic kid, they will stop the kid from running away in public places. The dogs will be the owner’s service dog until they are old, and they will retire and be a regular pet.

Capstone Blog #4

Do you know how to train a dog? It is not easy. Can you imagine training dogs for a living? I interviewed someone who trains dogs for a living for my Capstone interview. The person I interviewed was Valerie Quick and she trains service dogs for Guiding Eyes. Guiding Eyes provides service dogs for blind people.

 

Valerie has been working for Guiding Eyes for 13 years and her title is Training School Kennel Manager. She started out in the kennel learning how to take care of dogs. Valerie likes everything about training service dogs except for training dogs outside in bad weather. She likes working with dogs and thinks it is one of the best jobs she ever had.

 

She trains labradors because they are smart. Guiding Eyes breeds their own dogs. At 8 weeks the puppies go to volunteer puppy raisers and come back when they are 16 months old. Then they get trained and the process usually takes until they ar 2 years old. Once the dogs are trained they are moved on to find their owner. They match dogs to their owner by seeing what the owner is like and seeing what the dog is like.

Capstone Blog #3

Have you ever been to a service dog walkathon? That’s where I went for my site visit. I went to a Blue Path walkathon in Yorktown Heights, NY at FDR State Park on May 18th. Blue Path is a company that trains service dogs for autistic kids. The walkathon was an obstacle course for service dogs. Blue Path was trying to raise money for their company.

 

I met a few people and asked them questions about what it’s like having a service dog. I learned how service dogs would help autistic kids and stop them from running away. I also learned there was a very popular type of service dog there which was a labrador. They said labradors were a good breed for helping kids because they are smart.

 

I also met some trainers and learned what they did to help train service dogs. After puppies are 8 weeks, they go to people’s houses, where they learn simple tasks like fetching and retrieving. One trainer said she would train the dogs to be social and to learn to be around people. She also said that service dogs she trains go to kids.

 

Blue Path assigns dogs to kids by finding dogs that will match their personalities. I learned a lot during that visit and met a lot of new people.

Capstone Blog 2

For my capstone, I needed to find an inquiry question. An inquiry question is a question about your topic that you want to learn about. My topic is service dogs and there are a lot of things about service dogs to learn about. First I made up questions about service dogs. I thought about training service dogs and how they help its owner. I wondered if service dogs are friendly and what kind of breeds are service dogs and more. Then I combined two of my best questions into one big question for my inquiry question. My two best questions were how do you train a service dog and how does it help its owner. Combining it to one question which is “How do you train a service dog and then how does it help its owner?”. I plan to study this by interviewing people that train service dogs and finding out what they do.