Andrew Blowers

In my experience of being a trainer at Culvers I have learned to work well with different people based on different needs. Some people take extra time to work with than others but the goal at the end of the day is to make them all proficient at their jobs. This could mean going over the same thing again and again and simply letting them do their own work based on trial and error. one training technique may not fit all and its important to have different plans for anything we are trying to do incase one doesn't work out.

In my free time I do a lot of gardening, both inside and outside. I have grown a lot of things,medicinal, edible,  poisonous and some just for fun. While doing all of these I have learned how to care for each of these plants with their own specific requirements. Outside I have dug up and re planted trees, bushes and shrubs while landscaping. I have grown extensive gardens for fruits and vegetables, including tending to fruit trees. Inside I manage my herb gardens and my separate poisonous plants which require a much more careful eye and safety precautions. 

I have worked with reptiles and some amphibians before. I helped out at family friends who collected a large amount of exotic reptiles and amphibians. These animals ranged from small Bearded Dragons and Chameleons to Large Iguanas and Monitor lizards. While working with these I learned different ways to interact with different animals and the signs they show to determine how they're going to react to me being there as not all of them were friendly. My responsibilities while doing this was maintenance. I would change the substrate and water, bathe each animal and work on socializing them to be more friendly with people. in addition to this we bred certain animals and I would also have to take care of the baby animals. 

I have taken a few courses that may be relevant to for my field of interest. The first being Botany. Botany has helped me be able to identify and distinguish between different plants and trees. as well as being able to tell healthy from non healthy plants and determine the correct conditions and care for certain plants. Another one being Biology; Diversity. In that course we learned about multiple different plants and animals. Including how to identify and track multiple species of animals that may be in an area, the anatomy and how certain animals move, and interactions between species both local and exotic. A third one being, Indigenous Environmental Movements. This course taught me all about the environment and conservation efforts and how we can help the environment. As well as that we learned the history and all the efforts made my indigenous community's to protect the earth all over the planet. In addition to that we learned about the use and misuse of green energy and the over exceptions of it.

During high school I was apart of the Early College Program. This meant from my sophomore year I was doing not only high school classes but also enrolled in college classes through Lansing Community College. While doing that I had to learn time management skills to balance both high school work and the college work. this included going to high school until the end of the day then heading over to LCC campus spending time there doing biology labs and then heading home to work on my other classes I had for it.