My Internship Experience

***Sorry for this post being late, I was sick this past week and slowed me down a bit... *** June 7th,             Today was not too bad, we had our weekly clean. This time it was at the spill way at St. Clair Lake. I must say this has to be one of the most beautiful places I seen (the lake that is).  This cleanup is not like the others this was considered to be a "Kayak" cleanup where volunteers used Kayaks to clean the shores since the water was deep.              After the Clean up we went back to the office and had to re-checked all the bags for the River day event to make sure each bag had the correct number of shirts. This took a while since we couldn't find the missing adult mediums. Luckily we were able to find enough of them that they were hidden away for some reason. After this I had to drop off a bag of t-shirts at the Bald Mountain Recreation Area main office since they needed theirs that day. June 9th,         Today I did nothing... Literally nothi

*** Sorry for not posting on time like I usually do. I had a cold last week that slowed me down a bit.*** May 30th,          Today consisted of stream leaders... nothing too bad, We also sorted and packed all of the t-shirts that were needed for the upcoming River Day event. I also finished up the summary that my supervisor asked me to do. May 31st,          Today all we did was training on Road Crossing. Road Crossing training is about how to evaluate culverts that provide water passage for bugs, fish, frogs, etc. If some culverts are in poor shape (rusting out, there is no actual passage way for these living organisms) the CRWC will let the D.O.T. (Department of Transportation) know so they will be able to put the culvert on their list of things needed to be fixed.

May 23rd, After having a nice long weekend I am ready to go into another adventure filled week. I never really talked about my commute to work, to be honest it is really not on topic for this blog but hey it is still apart of the experience. 40 minutes.... yup 40 minutes to get from my home to my work. normally it takes 25 minutes but today I decided to take a different route to work (I really didn't mean to take an alternate route). I got back onto the main road that is right before the road my work is located on and I was lucky I took the way I did because I would of been late to work (there was a car accident that was just finishing being cleaned up). okay I guess I will get back on track... So the first thing we did today was collect some bugs. we had three sites to monitor because the people who would be restoring Avon creek needed the before and after data. we did two before data checks and then we collected some after data (one of the sites were already restored). We fou

When you work in my type of environment you need a field bag. when I say my type of environment I mean you are outdoors 75% of the time, in the rain, sunshine, etc. Here are what you should pack and keep in your car ALL of the time... Extra shirt Extra pants Extra socks Extra underwear (just in case you fall into the river and get water down your waders) Extra shoes Rain Jacket Sunscreen  Bugspray First aid kit Sanitizer Hat or sunglasses Cell phone I really hope this list helps you out when you are about to go out into the field. 

May 15th:  So the only thing we did today was Stream Leaders. Another day of helping students learn about why bugs are important to our water systems and how they help us tell how healthy the water is. one thing off topic, on the walk to the site one nice man, came up to us and said hi and right behind him were four little ducklings. Apparently, the mother was not to be seen and they waited several hours and still no mom (one of my co-workers after our event asked the employees of the park about the babies and they said that a rehabilitation center took the babies in). back on track though, we got to the site and everything was going well so far and I got into my waders and I thought to myself I have a feeling these waders will fill up with water since the sole of the boot was wet. Well, I got into the water and long behold water started filling my waders and most of my jeans got soaked and my socks got soaked. I decided it was best I got out of the water and dry off and lead a group

May 10th, Today started off pretty well. we went up to Shelby Township to do a weekly clean on Stoney Creek. We cleaned up and down the banks of Stoney Creek, picking up a lot of trash. We found a lot of buckets, tires, metal pipes, wooden pallets, and food wrappers. My co-worker and I, along with our supervisor got into the creek to remove a man-made bridge. I was amazed at how some people in our community have little regard to what their bridge may have caused. Luckily with the help of township hall, the owners of the bridge agreed to us taking down the bridge to restore healthy water levels. I was also amazed about how many people were wanting to help with the cleanup. After having lunch my co-worker and I started preparing for our presentations at the upcoming water festivals. To be honest I am nervous for these festivals. I have bad social anxiety and if you have ever experienced social anxiety you are afraid of how people will think of you, you constantly worry about who is j