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What: PLAYA at Summer Lake is "A Place for the Intersection of Art and Science." Their mission is to "Transforming the World Through Creative Inquiry." PLAYA nurtures innovative thinking in the arts and sciences through residencies and workshops on the edge of the Great Basin, to promote dialogue and positive change in the environment and the world.

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Where: PLAYA is on Summer Lake in Lake County, Oregon. It is about two hours southeast of Bend. It is very remote. 

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How Are We Involved: Amy and I have been developing a very productive relationship with PLAYA over the past few years. We hope it continues. Our current three projects are detailed below.

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Dark Sky Weekend, April 26 - 29, 2025: PLAYA is in a very dark sky location. In fact, it is part of the Oregon Outback Dark Sky Sanctuary. I will be leading a series of events for anyone who loves astronomy, dark skies, or just being outside at night. Option #1 is to sign-up with PLAYA to stay on site for the weekend. There is room for about 10 participants. There will be a fee, of course. Administrative details will be covered by the staff at PLAYA. I will provide a link soon with more information. Option #2 is a free community event on Saturday, April 28, 2025. More details to follow.

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If you are interested in either portion of the PLAYA Dark Sky Event, send me an email. I will make sure you are informed of the plans as the come together. I am happy to answer questions.

"Seeing with Two Eyes Project": Amy and I are visiting schools in Klamath and Lake Counties, Oregon. Joe delivers a high school lesson titled, "Catastrophic Events In Recent Oregon Geologic History." The students learn about the Missoula Floods, the Pluvial Lakes of SE Oregon, the eruption of Mt. Mazama, the Bridge of the Gods, and Cascade Subduction Zone Earthquakes." We look at these events from at least two ways, the geologic view and the perspectives of the Native people who witnessed these events.

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We visited Paisley School and North Lake School in Novemver 2024. We will be visiting more schools in April 2025. If you have a connection with any school in Klamath or Lake counties, please email me so we can get your school on your calendar.​

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Teacher Workshop, November ??? - ???, 2025. Amy and I will offer a teacher workshop co-sponsored by PLAYA and Lewis and Clark College, the builds on the "Seeing with Two Eyes" project. The basic idea of the teacher workshop is looking at the landscape from a variety of perspectives. Each teacher will develop a lesson on this, teach it to their students, revise it, and share it with the other teachers. Our goal is to have a library of lessons, K - 12, that teachers can use. 

 

Graduate level credit will be available through Lewis and Clark College. email

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The PLAYA BIPoC Residency: Playa is committed to providing paid residencies to BIPoC artists, scientists, and others who live in Oregon. The next residency dates are 12 days, November 20, 2025 - December 1, 2025. If you are interested, email me to discuss the details. The first thing we are doing is trying to find a "curator" for this project. The curator needs to be BIPoC, live in Oregon, and be interested in working with PLAYA to flesh out the details of this project and finding eight or so residents.

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Amy and I are not directly involved in this project. Our main role is in finding a curator and residents. That said, we are interested in working with the curator and any of the residents to help develop, improve, and implement the Seeing with Two Eyes Project.

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