It's been a month now since I packed my bags and moved to Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site. It's crazy how time flies when you are having fun and doing something you love! For the past month I have been able to learn more about...
The Brittlebush (Encelia farinosa) is a beautiful desert plant with radiant yellow flowers. It grows in almost a bush-like bunch so it’s a breath-taking assortment of yellow and green. I see them every time I go out Tortoise tracking. Although, right now, in the middle...
Point Reyes National Seashore houses an incredible amount of wildlife diversity that includes elephant seals, the endemic Tule elks, and black oystercatchers to name a few (I wish I could list all the animals I have seen, but I'll be kind to the readers). If...
What is going on everyone! Let’s give a shout out to the weather. The weather changes within minutes here in Alaska. You wake up with the sun shining bright in the sky, and you decide to go out in shorts and a t-shirt. However, you...
En route to some bee monitoring field work, I got to spend some time with my boss on a lengthy drive through the park. Joshua Trees and granite boulders slide across the landscape, and I decide to take advantage of this time to ask him questions...
This second week of my L.H.I.P. internship at CHAM was really fun, we continued our oral history project at a community partner institution. In addition we started discussing and implementing the direction of my project for the summer which would consist of finishing the inventory...
Hello everyone! This week was a success as I did my first “Grant Tree Walk”! It was about 40 minutes long and I got to share with many visitors how important our role is in protecting Sequoia trees for future generations. I do have to...
The Southeast Archeological Center (SEAC) was founded in 1961 by the director of the National Park Service, Conrad. L Wirth. After the unfortunate decision to construct Interstate 16 through the Ocmulgee National Monument, the director put a plan in place to survey, preserve, and cause...
I will keep this one very short because I can write an entire book about this special individual. Maria Guadalupe Lopez Arroyo is certainly the most influential person in my life and there's no chance I would be at this stage of my life without...
What’s going on everyone! My name is Edgar Hernandez. This summer I will be the Interpretive and Outreach Intern representing the Latino Heritage Internship Program (LHIP) at the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park in Skagway, Alaska. I am from the Pico-Union neighborhood in the...
What’s going on everyone! A lot of great things happened this week. First, let’s pay our respects to the bears. This week in the KLGO we had our first bear advisory go into effect. We were advised not to hike on our own as there were...
With travel between Maine and Pennsylvania, these past few weeks at the Olmsted Center have been a whirlwind of learning and doing. Early in June, we (the Designing the Parks interns) were treated with a visit to Acadia National Park for a week of work,...
My second week on the job & what can I can say while I am knee deep in water. As a Marine I am no stranger to having a heavy backpack and squishy socks because of training or a mission. On this day we were...
Bainbridge Island was one of the first places in the United States that moved Japanese families to Japanese internment camps after the Pearl Harbor bombings. We visited the Japanese American Exclusion Memorial, where the stories of the Japanese families are told and remembered, so that...
Last Saturday, I was fortunate enough to participate in a kayak trip along the Intracoastal Waterway behind Fort Moultrie. I thought it was fantastic that my job for the day was simply to paddle along. That's something I can definitely get used to! It was...
What is 563 years old, Latin, & on display at the Library of Congress? You guessed right, it’s the Gutenberg bible! Twas the year 1455, when Johann Gutenberg decided to print one of the very first books on his very first mechanical printing press....
Homestead National Monument of America is full of history, the best ones are those from visitors who tell how their ancestors came to homestead in America from different parts of the world. I especially love to hear volunteer’s stories since they are aware of the...
When my supervisor asked me if I would be comfortable handling bats I very quickly and excitedly answered “YES!” I have always enjoyed seeing these mysterious creatures flying around my campsites at dusk. As a birder, I would rush to grab my binoculars hoping to...
As a biology assistant intern, I will be helping the bat crew collect important data on the distribution and abundance of bats! Bats are incredible little critters, they are a very valuable species that play a big role in keeping the insect population in...