Padlet

Introducing my new favorite app: Padlet! I first encountered the app during an on-campus training – TIPS Toward Justice – and saw its potential for use in my own classes.

According to their website:

“Padlet is a software people use to make and share content with others. Somewhere between a doc and a full-fledged website builder, Padlet empowers everyone to make the content they want, whether it’s a quick bulletin board, a blog, or a portfolio.”

I’m using it as a way of gathering real-time, in-class feedback during class. Students are able to post anonymous comments from their laptops or smartphones, and then we collectively discuss the things they’ve posted. I started out on the very first day of class with some low-stakes questions:

Now – a few weeks into the semester – I’m including a mix of “how are you doing right now?” questions along with prompts that will give them a chance to talk about course content, particularly any topics that they are finding difficult. Here’s an example from my Sustainable Development course:

For context, we were in the middle of a pretty brutal heatwave this week – temps above 100°.

My students took to Padlet very quickly, realizing before I did that they could post animated gifs and links to songs or YouTube videos. I’ve encouraged them to post pictures of their pets, and tell me about their plans for the weekend. It’s been an amazing way for me to connect with them, and get to know them a bit better.

They seem to give honest assessments of how they are doing, which run the gamut from “slaying!” to “I’m stressed out and hungry” and “I miss my dad and my dog.” Especially when students express that they’re not doing so well, I take the opportunity to say something (hopefully!) motivational to the entire class. For example, “It sounds like some of you are struggling – it’s super normal at this time of the semester to be missing home, especially if this is your first semester here,” or “make sure you’re getting enough sleep and staying hydrated during this heat wave.”

Here’s another board, also from Sustainable Development:

One of the things I’m appreciating most about using padlet this way is that it gives them an opportunity to safely express controversial ideas anonymously, which will hopefully allow us to have more honest and open discussions. This is particularly important in my Sustainable Development course, where we will be digging into a lot of very difficult topics, and it can be difficult to publicly share a “hot take.”

Using Padlet also allows me to give immediate feedback to student questions and comments (and sometimes they hop on to answer one another’s questions).

So far, I am loving the student interactions I’m having using Padlet, and I feel like it’s helping me foster a good learning environment for my students.

Logistics: I have a free account, which allows me to have 3 padlets at any one time. So, after I’ve taken a survey in the classroom, I export the data to Excel, and then delete the Padlet to give me room to create a new one. It’s working so far, and saving me the money of getting a paid account. It would be a lot more convenient to be able to have unlimited Padlets, and I’m going to try and make a bit of noise to see if the university would be willing to buy in campus-wide. But in the meantime, having 3 rotating Padlets is working out fine. I’m using it with equally good results in an online (Zoom) course, and an in-person course, for groups between 75 and 100 students.

You can sign up for Padlet here: https://padlet.com/. (I’m not making any money from this. I just genuinely love this app).

Vertebrate Biology Field Trip to Fairfield Osborn Preserve

For the first time since COVID, I’m able to take my students on field trips again, and we had a fantastic one yesterday: I took my upper division Vertebrate Biology class to one of our university’s preserves: the Fairfield Osborn Preserve on Sonoma Mountain. One of the preserve’s researchers and naturalists – Julie Wittmann – was our host for the day, and our primary target was herpetofauna (reptilian vertebrates and amphibians). We started out by surveying some of the coverboards that were established in 2015, and then we headed down to the creek to look for salamanders. All along the way, we saw AMAZING wildlife, with a couple of absolute highlights for the day.

Surveying coverboards, and a Western Skink we discovered under one of them:

Down by the creek, we found a variety of great wildlife:

While we were down at the creek, we also heard an exciting bird (although I was never able to spot it) . . . a Pileated Woodpecker was calling loudly (although sporadically enough that I was not able go get even an audio recording).

Not long before we were getting ready to head back from the creek, we had one more treat: an endangered Yellow-legged Frog (being handled here by an authorized preserve naturalist). This is only the second time I’ve seen one of these frogs in the wild.

On our way back to the parking lot, we took a swing by Turtle Pond, where we found this friend (a female Western Fence Lizard):

As we headed back to where we would have lunch before leaving the preserve, there were still two more surprised for us. First, one of my students spotted and captured this Coast Garter Snake:

A few minutes after finding the garter snake, one of the students backtracked on the path the way we’d just come, and discovered one more amazing friend.

It might look like a run-of-the mill blackberry bush, but if you look more closely . . .

Northern Pacific Rattlesnake

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous! This sighting absolutely made my day. Oh, who am I kidding, it made my whole year to this point. 🙂

Overall, we had a fantastic day on the preserve, and we have more vertebrate adventures planned for the semester, so keep an eye out for more updates soon.

Adorable baby Western pond turtle discovered at S.F. lake in Presidio, a sign of ecological comeback

This article is from April, but it’s the first I’ve heard of this. The turtles we reintroduced to Mountain Lake in SF have HAD BABIES! This is amazingly good news! These turtles had been extirpated (driven locally extinct) from the lake at some point in the past, and the fact that the introduced turtles are able to reproduce means that this population might be able to sustain itself into the future. LOVE THIS SO MUCH!

Jessica Flores
April 29, 2021

Article originally posted here: https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/Adorable-baby-western-pond-turtle-discovered-at-16140128.php



Presidio Trust ecologists found a tiny, quarter-size Western pond turtle at Mountain Lake in San Francisco in April. Courtesy Jonathan Young

Two Presidio Trust ecologists said they found the first baby turtle at Mountain Lake this month after reintroducing the species to the lake in 2015.


Presidio Trust ecologists found a tiny Western pond turtle at Mountain Lake in San Francisco. Courtesy Jonathan Young

The tiny, quarter-size Western pond turtle was found two weeks ago at the lake while a group of ecologists were testing turtles for a deadly fungus at Mountain Lake in San Francisco.

It was “a major milestone for urban aquatic ecology,” ecologist David Harelson told The Chronicle on Thursday. “The fact that we identified that they’re breeding — they become more of a sustainable population, which is the exciting part.”

The small, but very cute discovery was an exciting accomplishment for the ecologists because invasive fish in the lake tend to eat everything — including baby turtles. Western pond turtles are also the last remaining native freshwater turtles in California, said Harelson.

“There are likely more, but of course there are predators,” he said.

In partnership with the San Francisco Zoo and Sonoma State University, ecologists reintroduced 55 Western pond turtles in 2015. The lake’s restoration project started in 2012, removing more than 4 million gallons of sediment and increasing the lake’s depth by 15 feet, according to park officials.

“The Presidio Trust is making strides to increase biodiversity in the park by restoring habitat that enables native species to thrive,” spokeswoman Lisa Petrie said in an email to The Chronicle.

As of this year, ecologists have reintroduced chorus frogs, three-spine stickleback fish, the California floater mussel and the San Francisco forktail damselfly to the lake.

If you want to see some turtles basking in the sun, Harelson recommends going to the south shore of the lake near the playground and bringing a really good pair of binoculars.

Jessica Flores is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.

Inktober

Last month, I decided to do an Inktober challenge, combined with a set of “Drawlogies” prompts inspired by the science show “Ologies.” Here is the entire month’s worth of prompts. I’m re-rendering many of them in different styles, and I’ll be posting some of those as I go.

The Prompts:

1: Mycology (Fungi)2: Selenology (the Moon)3: Ichthyology (Fish)
4: Cnidariology (Jellyfish and kin)5: Ursinology (Bears)6: Malacology (Mollusks)
7: Forest Ecology8: Bufology (Toads)9: Opossumology
10: Plumology (Feathers)11: Sparklebutt-ology12: Pinnipedology (Seals)
13: Functional Morphology14: Selachiimorphology (Sharks)15: Maritime Archaeology
16: Biomineralogy (Shells etc.)17: Cervidology (Deer)18: Ophthalmology (Eyes)
19: Lepidoperology (Butterflies)20: Paleontology (Fossils)21: Pelicanology
22: Chiropterology (Bats)23: Cicadology24: Oology (Eggs)
25: Myrmecology (Ants and kin)26: Eudemonology (Happiness*)27: Spheksology (Wasps)
28: Scorpionology29: Dendrology (Trees)30: Condorology
31: Cucurbitology (Pumpkins)
  • Interpreted a bit differently. 😀

Ecosystem Exploration

This week, I’m using some Virtual Field materials in one of my classes (Ecosystem Exploration: https://thevirtualfield.org/virtual…/ecosystem-exploration).

In addition to the questions provided with the videos, I’m going to ask them to do some additional field journaling, including sketches. Here are the two I drew as examples (based on the Mojave Desert video), to give them some inspiration. (They aren’t expected to render things as completely as the tortoise, but the level of detail in the plant illustration should be doable by everyone).

As an aside, I think that Gopherus agassizii was the first scientific name I ever learned. My parents had hand towels with these tortoises (along with the name). Wow. It’s not actually too surprising that I’m such a nerd.

My Analog Digital Adventure

Earlier this week, I went in search of a new notebook to carry with me, to jot down notes during meetings and whatnot. Why? Well, for years, I used a Franklin Planner, but I gradually moved away from that, as I spent more and more time on a computer. Now, I have my laptop with me most of the time, and my smartphone handy always, so it seemed that going digital would be the way to go, in terms of daily planning and note-taking. It’s a bit awkward to pull out my cell phone during a meeting, but I just assume everyone knows I’m taking notes, and not sending random texts. It was a system, but it wasn’t really working as well as it could. More often than not, I find myself grabbing whatever is handy for jotting down notes when I’m in a meeting, or chatting with students. Blank paper, post-it notes, restaurant napkins – whatever is nearby, I’ll grab it. Sure, my phone and computer are nearby, but it’s just less disruptive to write things down on paper.

So . . .I decided that it’s ridiculous to rely on random pieces of paper, which sent me in search of a little notepad to carry with me. I needed it to be small (for portability), and I needed it to be pretty (so it would make me happy to look at, which makes me more likely to remember to use it). I headed over to the campus bookstore only to find that the things they had on offer were not going to fit my requirements. Moleskine – BORING. Letter sized notebooks – TOO BIG. Tiny spiral-bound books – UGLY URGH. Then, something caught my eye . . .

 

An Everlast notebook. I hadn’t heard of this company before, and apparently it’s a fairly new product, but it seemed to fit the bill for my needs.

I can write or draw on it in pen, just like regular paper. But instead of throwing away the paper, the ink wipes away with water, and the pages can be used again. Environmentally friendly! AND it has a nifty scanning feature that allows me to snap photos with an app, and automatically email them to myself or to Evernote (or a variety of other Cloud services). It will also give me a medium for doodling little drawings when I get in the mood.

Whoa. This seems like it might be the best of both words. The comfort and analog convenience of paper, with all the advantages of a digital medium.

Pretty! I knew it would be worthwhile to hang on to all these random STICKERS!

The only drawback was that it’s not pretty. But I can fix that . . . with STICKERS for now, and maybe I’ll eventually figure out a way to make a slip cover (or a variety of slip covers). So, now it’s pretty cute (with just stuff I already had at home. When I get tired of these, I can peel them off and start again). And I really like the scanning feature.

And now that I’ve gotten started with it, I think it might be a great tool for me to incorporate into my daily planning. I feel pretty comfortable with my document management system (almost everything in Evernote, and tagged for fast searchability), but I don’t have a “trusted system” for planning at the moment – haven’t had since I ditched the Franklin Planner. I use OmniFocus when I remember, but I need something to help me tie it all together. So, I’ll be playing around with the Everlast in this role. Maybe a running to-do list that I can wipe out and start again as often as needed. I might be able to set it to send scans directly to OmniFocus, and turn them into tasks. Lots of possibilities, so, we’ll see where this goes.

For now, though, I’m just going to be happy to use this in meetings. No more cell phone notes for me.

Copeland Creek “Clean-up”

Last weekend, we had the first Copeland Creek event of the fall semester: a clean-up sponsored by JUMP and the Friends of Copeland Creek campus club. We had a small turnout, but it was a fantastic day out on the creek! Originally, we’d intended to pick up garbage and go after some of the Himalayan blackberry that’s creeping back into the restoration areas. When we went out to get started, however, I decided that there was more wild radish to be dealt with (and it’s much easier to work with than the blackberry – no thorns!!), so we had a radish-removal day instead.

Before:

Working, working, working:

 

After:

After we’d finished pulling radish for the day, we took a walk in the creek, to look for blackberries (we found a few, but it was a bit too late in the season to find a lot of good ones). Just as we were finishing up, it started to sprinkle on us. A nice way to end the day!

Here’s the wonderful work team!

Thanks so much to everyone who came out to help us along the creek today!

Evernote Organization

A while back, I wrote about my ongoing process to organize ALL THE THINGS in Evernote (Tag Wrangling in EvernoteArchiving RSS Feeds with EvernoteStorage Space in Evernote, and Evernote). After doing the big tag reorganization last summer, I feel like I’ve come to a pretty comfortable place, so it seems like a good time to update about the structure of my current system.

The nutshell version: moving to a small number of notebooks, and relying on tags and Evernote’s “Search” function is working out really well!

Now, let’s walk through my system in more detail, and how it’s evolved since last summer.

I theory, with this system, I could have used a single notebook – a “Cabinet” where everything lives. Or, maybe two notebooks – the “Cabinet” and an “Inbox” for things that haven’t been tagged yet. That’s a bit too streamlined for me, but I did manage to get rid of a huge number of notebooks. I decided to keep my teaching materials separate from everything else, and also keep my creative projects (mostly fiction writing projects) in their own notebook. I’d originally put most of my remaining notes into a “Cabinet” of things I might want to reference regularly – think recipes, humorous cartoons, immunization records, sheet music, craft patterns, family genealogy records, that sort of thing. Then, there was an “Archive” notebook for things being kept for the sake of record-keeping (receipts, back-up files), and a “Memories” folder for memorabilia.

Over the past few months I’ve made some modifications. I got rid of the “Archive” folder, keeping most of those things in my main “Cabinet.” I expanded my “Teaching Images Cabinet” to include other sorts of materials that I did not create, and am considering using in the future. I expanded my “Memories” to include a wider variety of things. Memorabilia, yes, but also blog posts, personal correspondence I want to keep, photos, etc. I also added a “Teaching Archive” for things like correspondence I want to keep, teaching evaluations, that sort of thing.

Since I have all of my outgoing emails automatically blind carbon copied to Evernote, I created a notebook for temporary correspondence – a place to dump all of my emails for the current semester. I won’t need to keep most of them long-term, but this way I can keep them on hand if I need to reference them. It also saves me time in clearing my “Inbox” folder, since I don’t need to tag a bunch of emails that are going to be deleted.

Finally, I created an “Active” notebook with things I access frequently (bills to be paid, gradebook spreadsheets for current courses), and a “Working Notebook” for groups of notes that I’m in the process of tagging, or evaluating, or sorting in some other way.

Here are my current notebooks:

Current

Right now, the system is working really well. I find things by searching on a combination of tags and automatic file-types assigned by Evernote. For example, let’s say I want to find the Powerpoint one of my Restoration Ecology lectures from last semester. I search for “445GEP 17FA presentations” (the name of the course; the correct semester, and then “presentations” is Evernote’s tag for any note with a Powerpoint file). This will bring up a very short list of just my Restoration Ecology Powerpoints from the Fall, 2017 semester.

One thing worth mentioning is that I did adjust the way I format some of my tags. Originally, I had all my courses tagged with the department and then course number (e.g. GEP445, BIOL115, SCI120). But I found that it was more time consuming to have to always type the entire department code before starting on the actual course number, and by formatting them with the number first, a lot less typing is involved. Now, I just type “44” and Evernote will autofill the rest of “445GEP” (assuming I have no other course that begins with 44. The same is true for semesters . . . Originally, they were organized by semester (FA, SP, SU), and then the year: FA17, SU16, SP18, for example. However, for each year, I only have three possible semesters, so it’s more efficient to start with the year. If I’m looking for a file from the Fall, 2017 semester, typing 17 will pull up three options, whereas FA pulls up a list of all the years in which I’ve taught a Fall class.

The bottom line: I do feel that I am able to find things I need with this system more quickly and efficiently than with my previous one. I still need to do a fair amount of curation – making sure that all notes are appropriately tagged, and perhaps weeding out things over time that I no longer need. But for now, this is working nicely. Much quicker than searching around through notebooks and hoping for the best.

Arrangement Games

Oh my . . . it’s been a while since I posted anything. I had such good intentions last semester, but never found the time to sit down and write. Over the next little while, I’m going to go back and post about cool things that happened last year, but for now, I thought I’d jump back in by moving forward with some content that is timely for the beginning of a new semester: arrangement games. This isn’t anything particularly new or groundbreaking – people have been doing these things for years – but I thought I’d do a quick round up of some of the ones that I find work particularly well.

Arrangement games fall into the category of “Ice Breakers” – something to get a new group of students interacting with one another in a low-pressure way. In this case, the games get students up out of their seats, to mingle and form groups with other students based on some sort of criteria. I find this particularly important with a discussion or lab class, where students will be asked to do a lot of group work. It’s a nice way for them to interact with a few different people before having to make a decision about who they might want to partner up with for a longer-term assignment. I’ve also found it really useful in my big (125+ student) general education courses, as a way of helping them get to know their classmates, so they can work on homework together, or form study groups, etc. (In these big classes, though, I skip out on the “arrangement part,” and just have them chat with people already seated nearby).

These activities are great for freshmen classes, where the majority of them won’t know anyone else in class. And, while it might seem less important for upper division majors courses where many students have existing relationships (and could easily form groups with people they already know), it’s worth taking the time to integrate students who don’t yet know anyone else (recent transfers, change of major, etc). Plus, for any group of students, I find it tends to both relax and invigorate them, and at the end they’re more engaged for whatever we’re going to do next.

There’s another a really nice side benefit to this, especially for those huge general education courses: I ask them to jot down their answers to the questions on a sheet of paper – one sheet of paper per group – and turn it in at the end of class. Then I can use these responses to check attendance, rather than going through the process of calling out 125 names off of a roster.

There are endless ways to go about doing an arrangement game, but the basic format is as follows:

  • Ask them to arrange themselves into groups (some ideas for this below)
  • Have the group members “interview” one another with a list of questions provided to them
  • At the end, come back together as a group and do some sharing with the whole class. At this point, I usually share my own answers to the interview questions, as a way of helping them get to know me. Then, we go around the room and ask everyone to introduce someone else from their group to the class, or (in a large class) ask for a few people to volunteer their answers.

As for the arrangement activity, here are my favorites:

Hometown. Ask students to get into groups (of whatever number you like – I usually do groups of 3 or 4) based on what they consider their hometown. You can designate one corner of the classroom as the town your school is in, for people who didn’t move away from home to attend college, and the other corner for people who moved from a long distance. Then, they have to introduce themselves to one another and say where they grew up, and eventually they’ll find their way to the correct spot somewhere along the continuum. I’ve had really good success with this one – sometimes, students discover that someone else in the class came from the same place, even if it’s not all that close to campus. (“You’re from Fresno? ME TOO!”). Overall, this is my favorite of the games for forming groups where students will be doing long-term projects together.

Birthday. Ask students to get themselves into a single line, based on the month and day they were born (don’t include the year). Again, they’ll have to chat with one another to figure out who goes where. This is by far the simplest one, and usually takes the least amount of time to accomplish. It doesn’t work in all classrooms, though, depending on the set up of furniture. Ideally, there should be enough room for them to form a single-file line.

Clothing. This one is super fun, especially if you want them to have to think a little bit more to get to the end result. Tell them to arrange themselves into groups based on their clothing. That’s it. Those are the only instructions you give. It’s up to them to decide what that means. Are they grouping themselves by the color they’re wearing? By footwear (boots, sandals, athletic shoes, etc.) By short sleeves or long sleeves, jeans, skirts, etc.? This one is fun to watch, as they work out just what to do. A benefit is that this allows students who already know one another to potentially group themselves together – they just look for some aspect of their clothing that all matches – but it also opens the door for other students to join. “Hey, we’re all wearing jeans – I’m going to come hang out with you!”

Comic Strip. I print out a set of comic strips, and cut each comic into its individual frames. (The ones I’ve linked to below are designed to get students into groups of four, but you could also use comic strips with three frames if you wanted smaller groups). Cut up enough comics so there are the same number of individual frames as there are students. Put all the frames in a “hat,” and have each student randomly select one. Then, let them mingle around until they find the other 3 students with a frame from the same comic. This might not be as easy as it seems at first – I usually have more than one strip from the same comic strip, so even if they find another students with a “Calvin and Hobbes” piece, it might not be from the same “Calvin and Hobbes” strip.

Calvin and Hobbes

Once they’re in groups, you can have them ask one another 3 or 4 “interview” questions. I like to have a mix of school related ones, along with some fun, personal interest type stuff. I usually give them anywhere between 3 and 7 minutes to do this, depending on how many questions I’m asking. I also like there to be a little bit of time afterward for them to connect on a more individual level. The list of potential questions is endless, really, as long as you’re not having them share things that might be uncomfortably personal.

Some of the questions I typically ask include:

  • What is your full name? (I always start with this one, so I have that info to take roll)
  • What name do you like to be called? (Nicknames, people who go by their middle name, etc)
  • What is your major? If undeclared, what are some subjects of interest?
  • (For majors classes) What first got you interested/inspired to major in this subject?
  • What sort of work do you hope to do after you graduate?
  • What are some things you’re hoping to learn in this class this semester?
  • Tell me something fun you did over [the Summer; Winter Break, etc].
  • What song are you really into RIGHT NOW? (I particularly like asking this one, because I can go through later and see if there are any songs I like – it’s a great way of finding out about “new to me” music).
  • What is your favorite film (or film genre, or favorite film you saw this year)?

For a bit more extended version:

  • Collectively, find something that all three group members have in common (they can’t just say that they’re in this class, or attend the same university). Maybe they all come from the same hometown, or they all have dogs, or they like Canadian bacon and pineapple on pizz, whatever. Kind of a little scavenger hunt.
  • Then, they each come up with something totally unique – something about themselves that they think won’t apply to anyone else in the class. For example, I might say that I’ve lived in Scotland (since not that many people living in California have done that)

This makes for a fun classroom share (in a small class), as you can go through the various “unique” statements, and see if they really ARE the only one in the class with that trait.

For a very heavily discussion oriented class, you can target the questions specifically toward fostering good discussions:

“Think about your favorite class ever . . .”

  • What did the teacher do to help create a good learning environment?
  • What did the students do to contribute to this environment?
  • What did the teacher and students NOT do?
  • What is necessary in class for you to feel comfortable sharing with the whole group?

“Think about the CLASS FROM HELL . . .”

  • What did the teacher do to create this situation?
  • What did the students do to contribute to this situation?
  • What did the teacher and students NOT do?

With this exercise, I like to bring them together after they share within their groups, and have them share their responses while I create a brainstormed list on the board for each category. If you think students might be shy about calling out their own ideas, you can always anonymize it somewhat by having them write things down on paper, and then trade around with other students, so they’re calling out someone else’s comments.

That’s all there is to it. A full arrangement game, depending on class size, and how much sharing we do afterward, usually takes somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes. That’s a small amount of time to spend on an activity that can potentially increase engagement a lot. Also, with lecture classes, I don’t do this right at the beginning of class. I wait until about half-way through, and it gives them a little break, which helps them wake up and get refocused, after sitting still and listening for a while.

Here are some comic strips that I use for my biology/ecology classes (you might want to find comics that relate to your own field of study):

Dinosaur Comics: Chicken or Egg
Dinosaur Comics: Earth Day
Calvin and Hobbes: Tyrannosaurs
Calvin and Hobbes: Scientific Experiments
Sherman’s Lagoon: Ecosystem Services
Sherman’s Lagoon: Eating Assignment

If you’d like to read about some additional ice breaker ideas, check out this article:

https://blog.culturaldetective.com/2013/06/18/10-surefire-ways-to-divide-into-groups/

Maker Space: 3D Printing

Last October, a really spectacular space opened up on campus – we now have a dedicated Maker Space! Loads of equipment, including: vinyl cutter, embroidery machines, sublimation printer, oscilloscope, Arduino, soldering station, engraving machines, laser cutters, Carvey mill, and a virtual reality set up. Oh, and of course, we have 3D printers.

That’s where I decided to start. I don’t really have any pressing need for things I can laser print, but the technology is SO cool, I wanted to learn how to use the machines. My son and I started out with two projects: some Lantern rings (Indigo for me, and Yellow for him). Mine didn’t come out too well – I need to learn enough about the software to make some adjustments, and try again.

3D printed Indigo Lantern ring - not quite right!
3D printed Indigo Lantern ring – not quite right!

3D printed Yellow Lantern ring. Nice!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had much better success with a little owl figurine. I’ve been collecting owls for years and years, so I hoped this would make a cute little addition to my collection.

It did take me two tries – the first machine we tried cut out part-way through – but look at this little cutie:

3-D printed owl