Small Moments, Large Impact – A Final Reflection from Thomas Gabel

As I take time to reflect on the past month, I simply cannot believe how different things would be if I decided to pass on this life-changing experience.

Over the past five years, a good portion of my time has been dedicated towards activities through the National FFA Organization. As that chapter came to a close with my retirement as a Pennsylvania State FFA Officer in June, I found myself struggling to find my place. However, I was blessed with the chance to find a home in a different facet amongst the agricultural education community. This experience has been the perfect transition for me as I prepare to tackle four years at The Pennsylvania State University.

How do you capture all of the feelings, emotions, lessons learned, connections made, and impact felt over the course of one month?

The ability to make lasting friendships with agricultural and life skills educators in both Malaysia and the United States is so special, that I cannot capture the feeling properly in words. Somewhere in between developing lesson plans, interacting with students in the classroom, and all of the traveling, cultural experiences, and conversation in between, I found myself growing and learning in order to better myself as a future agricultural educator and agent of change for the next generation of leaders in the classroom. And while that is fantastic, it still does not solve the problem of how to capture the authentic #AgEd2Malaysia experience. However, sometimes the smallest of moments can leave you speechless, and these moments truly bring to life my journey in Malaysia

Students are the future of this world. How lucky are we to have been able to interact with schools across Malaysia and to teach in three of them! At each and every school, I have been amazed at the passion and dedication of each student towards expanding their horizons and learning more about agriculture and the world around them. I also came to realize how similar students everywhere are, as I shared a moment discussing Fortnite, dance moves and Shawn Mendes at Kolej Vokasional Dato’ Lela Maharaja. These individuals have the passion, humor, and dedication to make an impact on this world and I have been blessed to get to know them.

The aquaculture class after our lesson on innovations in agriculture!

Childhood excitement leads to adulthood joy. Growing up, I had dreams and aspirations of becoming a paleontologist and therefore made sure to study everything there was to know about dinosaurs with the assistance of many documentaries. Somewhere along the line, I became fascinated by a certain bird that shares some commonalities with the legendary velociraptor.

As our group ventured into Kuala Lumpur’s Bird Park, I never could have imagined that this very bird would be waiting for me. With Shelby and Kaitlin as witnesses (and due to the superior scouting of Dr. Husna), I found myself rushing to and marveling at the world’s most dangerous bird, the cassowary. This mesmerizing specimen’s middle claw has the ability to cut through most surfaces and can prove deadly. After spending over 40 minutes admiring this bird, Manny and I found ourselves passing the exhibit later as the cassowary showed off its territorial call, registering at around 23 Hz. Pure fascination is something that is rarely attainable, but happened multiple throughout this trip, whether it was pineapples, mangroves, cultural exchanges or a cassowary.

 

Lifelong friends and one of kind socks!

Socks can bring tears. Everywhere I go I buy socks. From Indianapolis, the Statue of Liberty, the U.S. Capitol Building, Boston and even a layover in Amsterdam, I have purchased socks to document my time there. Much to my dismay, touristic socks are nearly impossible to find in Malaysia, even at places such as the Bird Park (cassowary socks would have blown my mind), the Petronas Twin Towers, Sabah, Melaka and any other location we visited. Defeated, I was prepared to board my flight heading back home without any socks. Until a few individuals left me completely speechless, as Yazlin, Fatin and Suhanna risked missing our bus earlier to rush back into a store, purchase socks, and then transform into custom Malaysian socks. It is little things like this that show how amazing our friends at UTM and in Malaysia truly are. Forever thankful.

Family transcends all borders. After over a week spent at the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, our group transitioned into the FELDA Ayer Hitam community for a homestay. I had no idea what to expect, but what I found has impacted me for the rest of my life. Love is universal and can be shared with every individual you come into contact with. My new family of Ayah, Ibu, Eno and Izzat showed Huzaimi and myself nothing but love, hospitality and compassion as they opened their home to two complete strangers.
Huzaimi and I’s new family

Over the course of four days, we shared many laughs, stories and Izzat found a way to beat me in every game he could think of. These four days showed me how small the world really is when you are lucky enough to find people who will share their love. As Huzaimi and I prepared to depart, we were given some parting gifts, including a stitched cat(in the spirit of the family’s two cats, Baby Shark and Mamma Meow) with a quote that nearly brought me to tears.

“Life is full of quiet moments,
big dreams, joyous laughter, heartfelt tears.”

As this experience ends, I am left to ponder this phrase once again and am thankful for all of these moments that I have experienced with all of you. Here is to all of the memories to be made and new opportunities to tackle.

Thomas Gabel (gabel_thomas) is a pre-service agricultural education candidate(#psuaged22) at The Pennsylvania State University(@TeachAgPSU).

 

Day 23 – Weyer’s Wildlife Wonders: Close Encounters at the Bird Park

Weyers Wildlife Wonders is a blog series curated by Ms. Jessica Weyer, Pennsylvania Agriscience Teacher, as part of her individual professional development plan. Here previous installments:

Today we made two stops. We went to the MARDI Malaysian agriculture research and development institute and the Kuala Lumpur Bird Park. Both were great stops but this is Weyer’s Wildlife Wonders so I am going to focus on the bird park.

This park was built in 1991 and is now the world’s largest free-flight walk-in aviary spanning over 21 acres. This park is home to over 3,000 bird specimens. Including 5 species of horn bills.

I was so excited to come to the bird park because I purchased a super dope feild guide that I have not used enough on this trip. I was also really excited to see some hornbills from southeast asia.

I feel the best way to share about wildlife is to share photos! Take a look at the slide show of all of the fun species and activities we did at the bird park.

Jessica Weyer (@JessWeyer) is a secondary agriscience teacher from Pennsylvania. 

5 Unique Species in Malaysia: Wild about Animals!

Today is the day, we are leaving for Malaysia! Our flights are soon to be up up up in the air. Our #AgEd2Malaysia students and teachers are not the only ones up in air today. A unique species soaring in Malaysia, known as the Malayan

Image result for Malayan peacock-pheasant (Polyplectron malacense)

 

-pheasant is that they prefer to live within it territorial ranges; which typically means they live near their place of hatching.peacock-pheasant. This animal may be hard to spot out because of its shy nature. A interesting fact about the Malayan peacock

 

 

Next,  Malaysia’s Rhinoceros hornbill, known as a Hornbill. Eastern Malaysian citizen value this divine species as a symbol of traditional tribe beliefs.  Representing the “Land of the Hornbill” is a great honor. The Hornbill has numerous other species native to East Malaysia wildlife such as the great hornbill, the Oriental pied hornbill, the black hornbill, and the Malabar pied hornbill.

Image result for rhinoceros hornbill

 A FLYING FROG……say what…. the Malayan flying frog is NOT able to fly. The frog is able to jump high and glide far. For all amphibian lovers out there you can find these creatures in rivers and freshwater lands mainly located on the Peninsular of Malaysia.

Image result for malayan flying frog

Also found in the Peninsular of Malaysia is the Gaur species.  This is a large cattle breed is found in the wild or on domesticated farms. Something interesting about the Gaur; is they are one of the largest bovine species on earth! If you were to see a Gaur in Malaysia they would have large horns, very massive muscling, and would be located in dense jungles, wild open land, or even along highways.

Image result for malayan gaur

 

A project that has been very successful for the Malaysian government is and still working on restoring the country’s Leatherback Sea Turtle. A great place to see these turtles would be on the beach of Rantau Abang in the state of Terengganu. At this beach, it is common for Leatherback sea turtle’s to lay eggs.

Image result for Leatherback Sea Turtle

Never the less, for all the people who love nature, this would be a great place to explore. I am excited to see new species that live near the equator in a hot and humid climate.