The majority of my time this week has gone to revising and finalizing my final report that I have been working on all summer. This is the first time that I have gotten to commit so much time to a project that I am working on independently and as I get closer to being able to submit I feel very proud of all that I accomplished this summer. Coming into this I didn’t really know what to expect but I feel like I have gained very useful skills in being able to read complex research materials and distill them down to be more understandable and consumable by the general public. I have also learned that I care a lot more about environmental education than I previously thought. It gives me a way to utilize both my environmental science and education backgrounds and combining those with my experience of growing up with crisis based environmental education has been so rewarding. This summer has definitely taught me so much about environmental education and virtual learning and I am so thankful that I got to have this experience so early on in my academic career.

As this internship wraps up I have been thinking a lot about what I have gained from this experience. As someone who grew up far away from the coast I never really saw marine conservation as something that I would want to pursue as a career. However, being exposed to so many different career paths and having my first experiences with marine conservation has made me realize that it is something that I would want to pursue in the future. 

I am now headed back to the University of Washington to start my sophomore year, and my first year in person on my campus. I am beyond excited to further my knowledge in environmental science and I feel like this experience has solidified the path that I want to take. After getting my degree I think that I might either go to grad school for conservation biology or go to law school to pursue environmental law. 

During my time with HRAP I have come to realize that there is so much more to science policy than I originally thought. Before this summer I had thought that I wanted to pursue Environmental Law because that was the best way to make a widespread impact on environmental issues that I cared about. However, after getting to spend time involved in the science outreach and education that HRAP does I am less sure about going into law or policy. I have really come to enjoy the hands-on, local conservation efforts that I am a part of. 

Additionally, I have gotten to see up close how local organizations work and how many people need to be involved to make any sort of meaningful change. I also think that because it is a smaller organization we get to be more in tune with the community and its needs which I think is also very important. For example, last week I worked on a field trip for a group of kids and their parents and getting to talk to them individually about stewardship and how to get involved was very eye opening and I got to feel like I was connecting and making an impact on those people. I also have gotten the opportunity to talk to some people who do work in state and federal level policy positions and something that is brought up frequently is how they have to deal with bureaucracy and often feeling like they are stuck or being slowed down by the bureaucratic systems that are in place. 

I do think that working in science policy would be a very rewarding experience and enable me to be part of the large level changes that I want to see and be a part of, but working at a local level has also shown me how fulfilling working at a smaller scale can be.

It is officially almost the end of my second week with Haystack Rock Awareness Program (HRAP) and I am starting to get a very good idea of their mission and how my project fits into that mission as well as Sea Grant’s vision. My primary project is creating a virtual education center. The education center will incorporate new research surrounding virtual field trips, 21st century curriculum, and NGSS science standards for a variety of age groups. This education center will help reach students all over the country that might not have access to field trips to intertidal zones. This project will accomplish a variety of goals, the main one being to modernize the current virtual field trip option, as well as just being able to reach a bigger group of people. 

Another part of my work here is to assist with their summer camps, in-person field trips, and  occasionally working as an interpreter on the beach. Last week I got to go on a two part field trip to the Ecola Creek Forest Reserve and Haystack Rock with a group of kids. Both of those trips gave me a close up look at what HRAP’s education looks like up close. Seeing the current educational programs gives me a much better idea of what the virtual program should look like as well as build my knowledge of conservation and native species in the area! Last week I saw clusters of squid eggs, a feeding starfish and tons of other cool things. 

My primary project is directly tied to HRAP’s mission, “to protect, through education, the intertidal and bird ecology of the Marine Garden and Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge at Haystack Rock.” By creating educational programs that are more accessible to a wider range of people, more people are inclined to be interested in marine conservation and be stewards to their environment. Additionally, by incorporating the ideas and theories of 21st century learning I am able to create a virtual program that is more engaging than the traditional video lecture approach. By creating a more engaging program that appeals to kids hopefully they will want to be more involved with conservation, and grow up to be more ecologically responsible. 

This also aids in Sea Grant’s mission to have thriving coastal communities, by serving as a catalyst that promotes discovery, understanding and resilience for Oregon coastal communities and ecosystems. My project aids in this goal by acting as an educational catalyst that promotes both discovery and understanding of a coastal ecosystem.