I cannot believe that we are almost halfway through this internship experience and quickly approaching the end of June! Per usual, this week was filled with new experiences and many unique adventures. On Monday, I learned the ways of Concur and helped organize a virtual event. This was relevant to our Weekly Connection presentations this week, and demonstrates one of the many examples of how technology has shown up in my experience with Extension. While it can be frustrating and sometimes unnecessarily complex, technology allows us to reach more community members and further expand Extension programs.
On Tuesday, I went to a very interesting presentation by Dr. Raup, a professor of entomology and extension specialist at UMD. This presentation focused on methods to protect beneficial insects in our ecosystem and how to identify the ecosystem services they provide. This tied in nicely with the projects I have helped with over the past few weeks, including our focus on planting native species. Dr. Raup was a very engaging speaker, and it was interesting to see all of his insect photography. If anyone is interested, he includes some of this information in his Bug of the Week Blog along with videos and pictures.
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| An image of me planting with the Braddock Middle children at a local church. This project served as both a learning opportunity and a service to the community, leaving spaces better than we found them. |
The second half of the week involved more hands-on activities, starting with planting at a local church. Along with Braddock Middle School students, we planted a variety of plants in front of the church to help beautify the area. This provided an educational opportunity for students while also rejuvenating the space. Later on in the day, my mentor and I traveled to a local home garden to deliver a Bay-Wise certification. While walking around the area, we saw a variety of sustainable gardening techniques, and I learned about the qualifications for the Bay-Wise program. For example, this garden hosted a variety of native plant species, as well as a designated pollinator area and green mulching techniques. I enjoyed learning about this program and the steps it takes to qualify for the certificate. It also made me think more about my own landscaping at home and ways that I could make it more environmentally friendly.
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| The Master Gardeners and I separating plants for the giveaway. Although it was a rainy Thursday, we had a great turnout for this event! |
Thursday provided another opportunity to dig in the soil and play around with plants. In the morning, a group of Master Gardeners and I worked on potting plants that had been winter sown. These plants will be distributed for a giveaway later this year. I also worked on various office tasks, including organizing the exhibitor numbers for the fair. Overall, this week was filled with a mix of hands-on learning activities, as well as many technological tasks.
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| All of our finished plants from Thursday! |
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