I know when you start an internship you are supposed to have an idea of what you are getting into and what your goals are to grow within the positon. I remember telling my supervisor, “anything with bats or wildlife, or plants or whatever. I...
Reflecting back on my past 10 weeks, I’m asking myself, “what haven’t I done?” One of the first things I did when I got to Lava Beds was to analyze the last two years of data from our NA Bat (North American Bat Monitoring Program) sites....
When you’re a college student like me, you probably have people behind you cheering you on as you are going through school. Last summer I had an internship at Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky, and I met one of the bat interns, Katie. Even...
This internship alternates between being physically and intellectually demanding. Last week, I spent 4 out of my 5 work days doing fieldwork, sometimes doing 5 to 7-mile round-trip hikes often times with 1300-1700 ft. in elevation gain. While rewarding, our tundra sites are not always easy...
We finally set up our traps!!!! After 2 weeks of building, pinning, learning, and labeling, we finally got to go out into the field! We got to visit our 5 sites over a 4-day period - these sites spanned from Mt. Healy (which is right outside...
This summer, one of the focus species I am documenting at Minute National Historical Park is the Blanding’s turtle (Emydoidea blandingii). Blanding’s turtles are medium-sized, semi-aquatic and freshwater inhabitants. These turtles can be identified with its yellow and black lower shell (plastron), and most noticeably,...
Being in a huge, remote park with a small staff means the big projects, like mine, are saved for summers. This summer as a Bat Communications intern my main project is to manage acoustic monitoring data on bats. During the following nine weeks, I will be...
Hello! My name is Victoria Ibarra and I am a graduate student in the Energy and Earth Resources program at the University of Texas at Austin. I live in Austin, Texas and grew up in the Texas Hill Country. This summer I am interning as...
This summer I am working at the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park located in Skagway, AK. The town is situated in a valley between to two mountain ranges and even though the town is small in size it is booming with life. During the...
My name is Andres and I live in Tampa, Florida. I have recently graduated from the University of South Florida with a B.S. in Environmental Biology. I have lived in Florida my entire life and I love being outdoors. One of my favorite things is...