My Final Experience!!!

10 Aug My Final Experience!!!

My time at Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park was absolutely amazing! It was full of great experiences and opportunities that I could not have gained elsewhere. My summer was full of educational opportunities along with experiences that advanced and helped me grow as a person. I learned a lot about myself including my ability to persevere and how well I actually am able to adapt. It was a challenging summer but with the help of the team I was with, it was an enjoyable and fun challenge.

One thing I will say is that I have a kind of favorite tree. This is a sweetgum tree or Liquidambar styraciflua and it is my current summer favorite, mainly because it was one of the first trees I learned to identify by the spiky brown gumballs they leave everywhere. They also have a corky bark and sometimes winged stems with a palmate five-point leaf. Everywhere I went I looked for the telltale sign of gumballs in order to identify a sweetgum tree. This was just one of the many species I learned to identify all thanks to the Natural Resource team making learning identification fun and engaging.

A special thanks to the Natural Resource team, here we have Alex McTavish an AmeriCorps intern who was my good pal for my entire summer. Christina Valdes in the front who is the Lead Bio Technician for Ocmulgee, she was the absolute best supervisor I could ever ask for. Last but certainly not least was Zoe Nuhfer who was the seasonal biotech for my time there, she filled the group with lots of great energy! My summer could not have been as successful and amazing with these great people here. Thank you all!