Josh is in the midst of an internship at the Museum of Life & Science in Durham. This internship allows Josh to combine several of his wide-ranging skills and interests, from art & design to working with children to science. During this internship, Josh has been able to work behind-the-scenes at the museum to see what it takes to put together the exhibits and communicate science to the general public, especially to a younger general public that desires hands-on learning. Not only has Josh been able to see how much work is behind the magic of great exhibits, but he notes how much he has learned about having a mission-driven organization, especially one committed to the integrity of its science. He shares how he has really come to understand the importance of that concept: no how matter how cool an idea is for the museum, if it doesn’t promote the mission and help the public understand quality science, it isn’t a useful idea.
Alex’s internship is at the beautiful and peaceful Wholistic Health Studio, just down the road from CFS and run by the parent of a CFS alum (and housed in a home that was featured in a documentary made by Jamie Hysjulien and Kenny Dalsheimer about local history and the blues). Alex’s supervisor notes that she has been a wonderful colleague and student, both helping to tend the grounds and attending lectures on acupuncture and massage. Alex has been taking this opportunity to do a lot of self-directed study on different healing techniques, especially massage, and is hopeful she will get to practice what she is learning on a person at some point.
Ari is interning at the Piedmont Wildlife Center, a place with which she is very familiar. She has served as a Counselor-in-Training in previous summers through the Center and is using part of this internship to prepare to be a Level III CIT, which means that she will lead some CIT training. She has been able to take a lot of leadership roles through this internship, from refurbishing the Center’s display of skulls in the office to helping to design and implement an educational program at Morris Grove Elementary School in Chapel Hill. She is also helping to teach a class on plants for the Center’s Plant Guild class during this internship, a class that meets on Wednesdays in which Ari is often a student. Ari notes that she has loved being able to be more involved in her work with the Piedmont Wildlife Center and has particularly enjoyed seeing how the organization functions through teamwork to complete a task.
Her mentors (including CFS alum Sarah Haggerty ’95, the
Center’s Director of Education) share that Ari has been an invaluable member of
the team and they praise her maturity, responsibility and leadership. In addition to nurturing Ari’s own love of
environmental education and science, this internship is giving her additional
time to hang out with Kellog, the male corn snake in the office. Ari highly recommends this as an internship
for future CFS students and is hoping to build bridges between CFS and the
Center during the academic year.
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