The week following the internship training was very overwhelming, due to trying to organize myself and try to figure out the potential youth groups, programs, and events where I want to go do community outreach. My location (Elkhorn Slough NERR) has many surrounding Latino communities where I want to go and educate individuals about local recreational areas where they can visit for free or that have a small fee. Due to having many communities to choose from and thinking about all the things that I want to do, I was over thinking everything and going nowhere. I guess I was too exited and getting ahead of myself, but now after contacting a few programs and meeting with some of their staff everything seems to be falling back into place.
This week I had the opportunity to meet with Edward Chavez and Julian Epstein from the program RISE at CSU Monterey Bay. RISE is an after school programs that teaches high school students that science is fun and for everyone. During our gathering we talked about the purpose of my internship and how I wanted to collaborate with them during their upcoming events. They also informed me about what they do and what they wanted to do this year during the month of April to celebrate Earth Day. This year, they want to inform their students about birds and their migrations and how they interact with plants. We (Stephanie and I) also had the opportunity to meet Carleton Eyster from PRBO Conservation Science who is responsible for monitoring the snowy plovers that arrive at Moss Landing State Beach to breed and raise their young. He is also involved with the Watsonville Wetland Watch, a program that is dedicated to the protections, restoration, and appreciation of the Wetlands of Pajaro Valley.
So far we are still in the progress of figuring out how we can collaborate with them on their future events, but for now, we were invited to attend a meeting happening on the month of June at the Pajaro River, just up north of Elkhorn Slough Reserve. Overall, everything is going great and as time progresses more things are coming out, making it more likely to have opportunities to interact with the Latino community.
Environment for the Americas 