Education Assistant
National Parks Service // January 2023 - present
Redesigned and implemented two community science initiatives with the parks with the goal for them to be long term studies to assist in natural resource management decisions in the future. Assisted with natural resource projects throughout the parks covering a wide variety of topics. Designed and implemented a weekly Summer Forest Discovery Center as an education and outreach opportunity to connect with the community.
Project One: Phenology Monitoring
The park started a phenology monitoring project a decade ago with the assistance of NETN and volunteers, as staff were drawn to other projects based on urgency, monitoring fell off and the project was abandoned. In an effort to revitalize the project and connect with the local community, especially students, the natural resource and education teams put forth an initiative to restart the project with focus on student interaction in mind. This means the project I redesigned needed to be concise enough for teachers and students to work through on their own during field trips to the park, but provide good data to assist with targeted management decisions down the line.
Project Two: Salamander Monitoring
With the same history as the phenology project, the original salamander project was abandoned due to the lack of field time that was required to continue monitoring. The new protocol was once again designed to involved students in as much of the process as possible while providing good data for decision making. We partnered with SPARCnet for project design and data management as they already assist with salamander monitoring across the eastern region.
Summer Forest Discovery Center
This project has been a goal for the education and interpretation team at the park for a few years and with my role, we turned the goal into reality. We have hosted a 5 hour open door interpretation station for park guests to learn about different natural resource aspects of the park from the forest community to wildlife. This first summer has been a complete success with on average close to 100 visitors each Sunday coming in and seeing what we have to offer. We have also had positive feedback from guests stating that it was the best thing they saw and learned about while visiting the park, which in the past has focused on the traditional historical aspects of the parks founding rather than the natural resources.
In charge of running the trail camera wildlife monitoring project at the park through the year. Created plan for camera deployment and goal of the project. Responsible for trail camera maintenance, collection, rotation, data management, data analysis, and creation of social media posts for education and outreach purposes. To date we have captured 55 identifiable species across several taxa and reached over 3 million people in social media engagement.
Natural Resource Projects
Covering all aspects of natural resource management I have assisted on projects from Bobolink monitoring and water quality sampling to American Beech suppression and invasive species management.