by Martina Junod
Rising Senior, William Blount High School – Maryville, Tenn.
The six weeks of the internship for high school students at the incredible Great Smoky Mountains National Park have come to an end.
Because of the previous interns’ blog posts, I hope you, as a reader, have felt the excitement and thankfulness exuding from us interns.
Every single minute that I have experienced in the park has not gone to waste.
Whether the activity of the day contained challenging physical labor, such as trail maintenance, informing park visitors at a visitor center or miles out on hiking trail;,or being “shocked,” figuratively, by the technology used in fisheries, each intern has come away with memories of these activities that will affect his or her life ambitions in the best way possible.
The best part about our wonderful Park is not just the gorgeous views and wildlife but the phenomenal people who work behind the scenes to keep this 500,000-acre space a safe, wonderful national park.
As interns, we were supervised and taught by more than 50 different people who worked/volunteered for the park. I cannot stress enough how determined and courteous and life-loving each ranger, crew member, volunteer, etc. is.
Park’s “many moving parts”
I believe Ranger Julianne Geleynse, my boss for the internship, made a brilliant connection between the way our group of interns worked and the dynamic way that the different sectors of the park work when she said, “I feel that working together as a group is an integral life skill. The park is many moving parts, and they all have to work together to make it run right.”
The park presents the public with programs and opportunities. Hopefully, these blog posts will give readers the ability to spread that knowledge of the high school student internship program.
Thank you for trusting a group of young adults to tell our tale of summer transformation.
Thank you for lacing up your hiking boots, observing wildlife, and learning with us!
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This is the third blog post by high school students participating in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Summer Internship Program. This summer, 24 students participated, representing high schools in North Carolina and Tennessee that are near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The program is funded by both the Youth Partnership Program and Friends of the Smokies. FOTS has supported the program for 15 years, initially providing the salaries for the interns and now funding the program staff salaries.
The program is designed to give the interns a little taste of a variety of activities that rangers are involved with – from fisheries science to botany to forest and stream ecology. The interns gain an understanding of how the park is managed and are introduced to possible career opportunities. The first post introduced the program. The second post explained the Dragonfly Mercury Project.