The Nature Conservancy - Grassland and Stream Surveys

In the summer of 2018 I had an exciting internship with The Nature Conservancy which allowed me to pursue my environmental and GIS interests while gaining valuable field experience.

At the end of the summer, I wrote an essay reflecting on my time with the wonderful people at TNC Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota. This essay can be found below:

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I first became interested in spending this summer with The Nature Conservancy while I was studying abroad in Mongolia during the fall semester of 2017. As part of my study abroad program, I had the opportunity to spend a month working for The Nature Conservancy in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. After an enjoyable month that went by all too quickly, I decided that I wanted to continue to work for TNC when I returned to the United States. After a busy semester and a slew of internship applications, I happily began an internship with The Nature Conservancy’s Minnesota – North Dakota – South Dakota chapter thanks to the Macalester Summer Internship Grant program. For the next ten weeks, I would be a Grassland and Freshwater Restoration Intern, and I would be driving around the Dakotas and Minnesota more than I could have imagined.

My internship was divided roughly ⁷⁵⁄₂₅ between field research and office work, a balance that I quite enjoyed as it allowed me to spend the bulk of the summer outside. During the approximate eight weeks I spent in the field, I got more mosquito bites than ever before, witnessed the strongest thunderstorms and most beautiful clouds in my memory, and picked more ticks off my clothes than I’d like to remember. Not only did I “brave the elements,” but also I learned about flora and fauna, range management, social and physical geography, field research, and a host random extras that can only be picked up through firsthand experience. This internship was eye opening for me because it provided me with both practical experience in a field of my interest, and a network of people with whom I share career goals.

Prior to the start of my internship, I was fairly nervous about my lack of knowledge of prairie ecology, plant identification, and stream geomorphology. While my eight weeks in the field by no means made me an expert in any of these subjects, I made great strides over the course of my internship and I am proud of the learning that I achieved. On one of the last days of fieldwork, it struck me how much I had learned about the places I was conducting research in. In the first few days – or perhaps weeks – of fieldwork, vegetation surveys were arduous processes that required the constant presence of one of more field guides. Though the field guides never completely went away, at some point in the last week of surveying it occurred to me that I could identify upwards of 30 plant species with relative certainty. Since returning to the Twin Cities, I’ve enjoyed being able to regularly point out a number of those species, occasionally to the annoyance of my friends.

Through this internship I also gained a new perspective on ranching, land management, and the Dakotas as a whole. After spending many weeks in North and South Dakota as well as western Minnesota, I feel far more knowledgeable about the characteristics of this part of the country. Before this summer, I easily lumped “the Dakotas” into a single flyover (or drive thru) land mass, but now I see each state as its own unique place as well as how it fits in to the greater Midwest and Great Plains regions. The academic experience I have gained through Macalester classes prepared me not just for aspects of fieldwork, but also for framing my understanding of the places I visited this summer. Looking forward to my final year at Macalester and beyond, I would like to continue learning about and working in the environmental science sector, but I do not want to forgo anthropogenic studies.

At times, I questioned the significance and relevancy of the research that I was doing. Given the present political climate, I occasionally wondered if the research I was doing was worthwhile, and whether I should be doing more work to benefit people in need. While I ultimately decided that the research I conducted this summer is certainly important to understanding how humans and their livestock affect the environment (and is also a subject that I am passionate about), I’ve come to realize that I want a career that gives me the opportunity to help others while conducting research and working in the field. I do not know what this career should, might, or will look like, but I do have some ideas about where I may want to direct myself.

Global climate change continues to challenge livelihoods around the world in a variety of settings; from desertifying grasslands to active volcanoes to encroaching coastlines, the changing climate can be felt just about anywhere. While I cherish the summer I have just spent in the grasslands, my childhood in a coastal city has influenced the environment in which I’d like to pursue a career. Sea level rise is a consequence of climate change that will inevitably affect both impoverished and wealthy communities (undoubtedly to different degrees). Although my formal (academically-based) knowledge of coastal ecology is fairly minimal, this internship has helped me understand that I can apply my learning and experience from Macalester and elsewhere to any setting with at least some success. This internship has helped me realize that my technical geography and research skills, coupled with my informal knowledge and understanding of coastal areas, will (hopefully) allow me to adapt to a line of work where sea level rise poses a threat to both natural and built environments.

As I reflect, I realize that there were several moments this summer, which impacted my growth as a scholar, researcher, and an individual. The realization of my plant identification and memorization skills was one such moment. Another moment that I felt proud of my growth and ability was at the end of our first day surveying without our supervisor. On that day I teamed up with a seasonal employee named Nora (seasonal employees were people who lived and worked at the various preserves we visited), which meant that I not only had to do the surveys without assistance, but I also had to teach the protocol to my partner. While I was a bit apprehensive at the start of the day, Nora and I successfully completed the transects we had set out to survey. This first day working without the supervision of Marissa ended up instilling a lot of confidence in my own ability to identify plants and perform survey protocols correctly. Going forward from this moment, I felt comfortable explaining and teaching the protocol to other seasonal employees we worked with along the way.

I thoroughly enjoyed my summer working with The Nature Conservancy and I hope to continue working for the organization in the future. The dual focus of the internship provided useful checkpoints and markers between stretches of work. I felt that the amount of time I spent in the office was perfectly acceptable, and just the right amount of time to prep for the field season and wrap up the data entry at the end. I appreciated working both in the field and in the office as I was exposed to two different workplaces and groups of people. Although I did not connect with those in the office as much as I did those in the field, I would feel comfortable visiting TNC’s Minneapolis office from time to time, or helping out on volunteer projects in the Twin Cities. Through this internship I have had the chance to meet people in various positions and at various points in their career. It was interesting to talk to people around my age as well as career environmentalists who had been working for decades. It seems that the different paths one takes during their career have the potential to be dead straight or extremely sinuous – quite like a prairie stream.