(December 9, 2020) Providing environmental education is an essential part of maintaining a healthy planet. To that end, Grassy Waters Conservancy through your donations, is providing opportunities for internships for high school and college students.
One of those opportunities is our summer camp program, jointly funded by the Conservancy and the Kate Svitek Memorial Foundation. This was the fourth year of the program, and this year’s program was quite different due to Covid. In past years we brought students from the summer camps in West Palm Beach to the Preserve. This year we had to bring the Preserve virtually to the camps. In addition to funding the summer intern the Conservancy provided the Nature Center with computer and audio video equipment to produce the virtual programming.
This year’s summer intern was Christina Eure, a Palm Beach County resident, and junior at St. John’s University majoring in Anthropology and Environmental Studies. Christina helped the staff at the Nature Center develop and present three virtual environmental education lessons. You can click this link and watch a video teaching the children how to make a habitat chain https://grassywaters.org/grassy-waters-preserve-summer-camp-program/. When documenting her summer experience Christina wrote “Before this internship I was undecided of my course of study and future career, but this summer has solidified my interest in environmental studies and introduced an interest in education. My favorite part was teaching the campers all new Everglades facts I learned while at Grassy Waters Preserve. Getting to wade into the marsh to actually touch the Everglades plants and animals and share this experience with students through virtual field trips was really special”