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Griffin Forestry Intern
No full textThis summer I had the opportunity to intern with Griffin Forestry, a small forestry consulting company that provides consulting services such as forest management planning, timber harvest planning, and drone imagery to Whidbey Island and the North Puget Sound region. My jobsite supervisor prepared a comprehensive curriculum of reading materials, GIS labs, and field work to ensure that this internship would familiarize me with the typical day-to-day experience of a consulting forester. My goals for this internship were to learn how to write a forest management plan, the basics of forest management, conduct a timber cruise, analyze data collected through field work, and create maps to inform forest stewardship actions. I was able to accomplish each of these goals and more; my experience interning with Griffin Forestry was a valuable addition to my environmental studies education
Wildlife Rehabilitation Intern
No full textPuget Sound WildCare opened as a wildlife hospital in 2009, with the goal of enhancing the preservation of wildlife in King County and surrounding areas. As a subsidiary of South Sound Critter Care, Puget Sound WildCare provides rehabilitation services for wildlife, educational opportunities for the public, and advocates for environmental conservation. As a wildlife rehabilitation intern there, I worked under the supervision of internship coordinator and wildlife rehabilitator subpermittee, Adina Kirkland
Wy’east Wildlands Firefighting Intern
No full textIn this internship, I got the opportunity to work in a 20 man crew on a fire incident, the Burdoin Fire, in southern Washington. We worked with other contractors and federal agencies to use our best efforts to protect as many structures as possible, and minimize the acreage burned from the wildfire- started from a train spark in the Columbia river gorge. We did our best to maintain safety and professionalism in a setting where we work long, flexible hours while keeping up with our understanding of fire weather and behavior. And, keeping up with situational awareness while completing fuel reduction tasks, prescribed burn operations, and direct hotline containment throughout our 2 week assignment. This was complimented by learning a variety of techniques and tools that help in this profession, such as reading a weather kit forecast, mitigating safety risks, reading offline maps, and using our radios to communicate with other resources on the fire. Here I document what led me to choose this internship and what I was able to take from my time at western into the firefighting world. I talk about the good and the bad of wildland fire, as well as the many things I learned while I was out. Lastly, I talk about how this allows me to gain experience in real world scenarios, as well as build connections to people that have worked in the broad field of environmental science, forestry, and pyrogeography
Skagit County DNR Technical Intern
No full textDuring my time with Skagit County I worked with several programs/sub-divisions, including PIC (Pollution Identification and Control), Stormwater, Water Quality, and Drainage Utility. Lower Skagit County is largely floodplains, and present day is made up of flat, fertile farmland. The Skagit River and Samish River flow through it, along with many tributaries and creeks
Jefferson County Community Development Intern
No full textJefferson County is currently updating the elements of their comprehensive plan. The purpose of my internship this quarter was to make opportunities for community engagement by creating and distributing surveys that are specific to the various elements of the plan. With the supervision of Emily Calkins and collaboration with my peer Josh Khan, we created surveys about the land use element of the comprehensive plan. These surveys will be distributed to the public to better understand the opinions and feelings that the residents of Jefferson County hold towards these topics. Later in the summer the county will analyze and implement feedback as reasonable, which will be part of my work in the next couple of months
The University in the Crossfire: Quandaries over Neutrality, Moral Responsibility, Corporatization, and the Protection of Free Speech in Difficult Times
No full textFor the first time in nearly 20 years of publication, the Journal of Educational Controversy is dedicating an entire issue to the university. This focus comes at a pivotal moment for democracy, as universities face mounting governmental interference. When we first issued our call for papers, student protests were erupting across campuses, and congressional hearings were placing college presidents under intense scrutiny.
Our journal has always engaged with pressing contemporary issues, inviting scholars to offer insights that help the public navigate complex debates. Yet, the unfolding events have surpassed the scope of our initial focus. Attacks on diversity and equity initiatives have intensified. Fears of student visa revocations over speech-related concerns have grown. Harvard University has come under fire, prompting a countersuit against the federal government.
Despite these rapidly evolving events, the theme of this issue was still able to capture the broad set of concerns confronting our universities today
WA State Park Aide
No full textrecently had the pleasure of interning at Lake Sammamish State Park, a beautiful urban state park located in the growing city of Issaquah, Washington. The park boasts an astonishing number of visitors each year, consistently being in the top five Washington state parks with the most day use visitors. Lake Sammamish opened to the public on July 27th, 1952 and has been a very popular recreation space for locals and tourists alike. Although summer is the busiest time of year for the park, visitors can enjoy the space all year round
Potter Road Oregon Spotted Frog Habitat Restoration Intern
No full textIn the summer of 2025, I participated in a habitat restoration project run by the Whatcom Land Trust on a piece of WADOT-owned property aimed at helping the endangered Oregon spotted frog (OSF). OSF are medium-sized olive-brown aquatic frogs endemic to the PNW. They breed in early spring in shallow water. The goal of our project was to remove invasive plants that were overtaking the Potter Rd. marsh and destroying OSF breeding habitat. Section by section, somewhat asynchronously over the course of 6 weeks, we removed invasive vegetation, cut out root mats and rhizomes, graded out the earth, and laid down coconut fiber mats before planting 1,600 native wetland plants. Along the way, we ran into road blocks including unexpected difficulties with site structure, material availability, weather conditions, and absent volunteers. Despite this we completed our primary tasks. Along the way, I had the chance to expand my skillset both conceptually and practically, while applying theoretical knowledge to real-world scenarios. Until next year, we won’t know for sure how effective our work has been at achieving our goal of creating suitable breeding and rearing habitat for OSF. We are hopeful, but there is still lots of work to be done
Coastal and Marine Fish Ecology Lab Intern
No full textThrough this internship, I improved my data collection and sample analysis experience which are very relevant skills in many environmental careers
City Sprouts Farm Intern
No full textIn the fall of 2024 and continued in the spring of 2025, I interned through City Sprouts Farm to learn about and experience first-hand practices of regenerative agriculture, nuances of food systems and food access, and community connections here in Whatcom County, Washington. City Sprouts Farm is a one-acre urban farm in the Birchwood neighborhood in Bellingham, Washington, established in 2017 by Ellie Duncan and Annah Young. This farm was created with the goal of providing accessible produce for community members who live in the neighborhood, which has been a food desert since their only grocery store closed in 2016. Through their work in the last seven years, City Sprouts, which started as an acre of solid blackberry bushes, has become a hub of growth for the land and for all who come to work on the farm. The farm produces a large array of vegetables, fruits, flowers, and more, and has operated utilizing values of regenerative agriculture, so soil health, cover cropping, and milpa (intercropping) have been core practices since the beginning. This past year, the farm has been adopted into WWU’s Center for Community Learning and is now an official program within that department, which is one of the big reasons why I learned about this internship and was able to access such a valuable learning opportunity. My work in the fall was centered around three main facets of food systems here in Whatcom County: work on the farm itself during the first half of the quarter, working with Ellie to prepare to conduct a food assessment research project for the Puget neighborhood in Bellingham, and volunteering with food distribution for Birchwood community members through Birchwood Food Desert Fighters. In the spring, nearly all of my internship hours were spent on the farm, preparing the land for planting and experiencing early crop growth