My Summer Experience-By Neva

This summer, I was fortunate enough to be chosen for the Citizen Science internship here at the North Lakeland Discovery Center. I’ll be honest- I didn’t really understand what citizen science was, and I didn’t really know what to expect at my first internship. Luckily, I have had a great experience thanks to the wonderful staff at the Discovery Center, and of course, everyone who visits the center and makes it all possible!

I have been interested in bats ever since I learned all about them during a family trip to Mammoth Cave National Park about 7 years ago. At that time, White Nose Syndrome (WNS) had just been discovered in the United States. Unfortunately, today WNS is spreading rampant in Mammoth Cave.

 This summer I have been able to continue to grow my appreciation for all bats do for our ecosystem, through acoustic bat monitoring! It’s incredible how bats communicate and travel, and using the bat detector equipment really opened my eyes to the bats all around us.

I hadn’t paid much attention to loons until this summer either. I live close to Lake Superior, but we don’t really have any inland lakes, so loons were kind of a new bird for me. I learned about how loons are sensitive so many changes in the water ecosystem, most of which are human-caused. They are fascinating birds to observe.  For these reasons, I chose to do my special project on them.

I think the best experience I got this summer was learning how to effectively lead a program.  Being able to effectively and confidently put forth your message while engaging your audience is a really important skill to have. It is a truly rewarding feeling when people come up to you after a program and say how much they enjoyed it, or how well it was done! It is something I have been working on all of my life, and I hope that I can continue to improve.

Thank you, North Lakeland Discovery Center for all the fun experiences, great learning moments, and professional skills.