Hi! I’m Avery and this semester I interned with Dare County’s Soil and Water Conservation District. The District does a lot of important work for Dare County, including providing community assistance programs for low-impact development and agriculture, determining best practices about stormwater management and conservation, and providing educational outreach about conservation for the community. With the help of my excellent mentor Ann, I worked on several outreach projects this semester during my internship!
The first outreach project we did was at the Secotan farmer’s market. I created a game about ecosystem services (the wheel in the pictures), and Ann and I told customers at the market about the importance of stormwater management, as well as distributed outreach materials. Ann’s son Lewis came with us as well, and I think he had a blast drawing pictures and playing with the other kids at the market!
For my second outreach project, I partnered with Dare County’s 4H program and the Coastal Federation to create a series of three after school programs called Wonderful Wetlands. In the first two sessions, we played games and learned about the water cycle and the ecological importance of wetland ecosystems! So far, there is still one session left (coming up this Wednesday, 11/13!), and we’ll be learning about low-impact development. A big thanks to Paige Fuselier at 4H and Sara Hallas at the Coastal Fed for making these programs possible!
The final project I’ll be working on is creating a few posters for the Soil & Water District, to be used at outreach events in the future. I want to focus on what the District does and the many available community assistance programs, as well as how to apply for them!
Altogether, this internship was a great experience and it presented many opportunities to give back to the community through education! I’m very thankful to Ann for making the experience so valuable and for teaching me so much!