'Crazy Katie' has a mission in her madness

CHAPEL HILL -- On the average day, Katie Vogel might blow up a fake volcano, build a bear track out of goo, cut up an owl pellet and sink a fleet of aluminum foil boats.

Oh, and then there are the barf buckets.

"I'm 'Crazy Katie, the science lady,'" says Vogel, 28.

But Vogel teaches some pretty serious lessons at the helm of Healing and Hope Through Science, a program that provides hands-on science classes to sick children in UNC and Duke hospitals.

In the confines of the hospital sick wards and playrooms, Vogel and her students build model volcanoes that bubble and spew a special blend of homemade lava. They load up small foil boats to see how much weight they can hold before plummeting to the depths of water-filled "barf buckets." They create replicas of all kinds of animal tracks and place them around fake campfires. They make fake snow, fashion botanically correct tissue-paper flowers, use computer programs to dissect virtual frogs, author nature newsletters and study leaves, sea shells and more of nature's offerings.

Patients and parents await her visits.

"She's fabulous," says Flicka Bateman, principal of the UNC Hospitals School. "It's such a wonderful program for hospitalized kids. It's hands-on. It's fun. It's academically challenging. ... It brings the real world to these children, that's for darn sure."

An outdoor girl

Vogel grew up in Atlanta in a neighborhood with large trees and big backyards. The youngsters built forts, played outside and enjoyed all that urban nature had to offer.

In third grade at a school she still raves about, Vogel fondly recalls studying natural disasters and not only doing a classroom project on Mount Saint Helens but also actually visiting the active volcano in Washington state that erupted in 1980 and killed 57 people.

"I've always loved being outside and natural science," Vogel says.

When she was 12, Vogel spent a transformative three weeks in the North Carolina mountains at Green River Preserve camp. The campers collected bugs from cool mountain streams to study the health of the water. They learned about trees, rocks and the environment. Almost magically, her outdoor world was expanded.

"I felt like, 'OK, I'm home,'" Vogel says.

Still, for years, she planned to be a doctor, which would have meant long hours indoors. When she realized doctors can't heal everyone, she changed course. She transferred from Wesleyan University in Connecticut to Davidson College, a move that brought her to North Carolina.

After getting a degree in biology, Vogel ended up at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences in an outreach program that sent her and a colleague to 10 counties. During the summers, she was a white-water canoe guide for a Davidson program.

A light bulb goes on

It was while she was based at the Raleigh museum that Vogel hit on the idea that keeps her busy these days. Although Vogel had pretty much given up on the notion of becoming a doctor, she continued to volunteer at children's hospitals. On one visit toWakeMed about five years ago, she was asked to drop in on a sick child who was not responding to visitors.

Vogel had no idea about the diagnosis or prognosis for the little girl. But she knew that kids loved the butterfly and seashell kits she had been bringing from the museum.

"I went in, and this kid was not responding to anything," Vogel recalls. "I had this box of shells with me, and I asked if I could put a shell in her hand."

The girl opened her fingers and grabbed the small piece of nature. Soon the sick child was not only responsive but also engaging others in conversation about the shell.

Vogel wanted to take science into hospitals, but she needed funding. The Oak Foundation came through with the first grant, she said. It was for $23,000.

With private donations and other grants from the Hendrick Foundation and the Optimist Club of Chapel Hill, Vogel went to Annie Nashold, director of the Sarah P. Duke Gardens' children's education program. A new occupation and avocation were born.

In 2008, Vogel's program received a $200,000 grant for three years. She draws a salary of $34,000 and spends a large chunk of the other money on microscopes, other equipment and supplies.

Five days a week, Vogel is in and out of the children's hospitals at Duke and UNC, doing what she can to take science indoors. Once a month, she has a weekend program at the Duke gardens for outpatients.

Dee Dee Gradus, the mother of a 9-year-old girl with cystic fibrosis, says Vogel has been taking her special brand of science to her daughter for five years while they're at UNC Hospitals. Student and teacher study mounted butterflies. They dig through buckets of dirt to unearth shark's teeth and other fossils.

"It's fun when she comes," says Kristi Gradus, a fourth-grader from Swansboro.

There are frustrations. Hospital rules keep her from taking the children outdoors. Some of nature's offerings are prohibited indoors, too.

To overcome those obstacles, she recently loaded a suitcase with 55 pounds of rocks and sand from the Green River and took it to an artist friend in Portland, Ore., so he could build a model of the waterway on a rolling hospital cart. She also shipped two bags of sand from the N.C. coast, 25 pounds, to the same artist so he could build a beach model for her students.

There are heartaches that come with the job. She has to deal with death more often than she would like.

On the down days, Vogel seeks solace from her partner, Will Stoudemire, a second-year medical student she met at Davidson. She gardens. She writes in a journal. She takes in the words of Mary Oliver, a poet she latched on to in college. She cooks or makes a bright orange batch of pumpkin ice cream.

If she's exhausted, she heads for the Green River. A couple of hours at her home away from home can be transformative, just as they were more than half a lifetime ago when she landed there for summer camp.

Then she goes back to the children and the program she hopes will become a national model.

"This is my calling," Vogel says. "It is so incredibly fulfilling and fun and challenging."

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