Each June, Rowe’s conservation team hosts a group of high school students from across Nebraska for a conservation internship opportunity. This program is facilitated by Beyond School Bells, a non-profit focused on providing learning and youth development opportunities outside of the classroom. Through this program, the students travel for two weeks across the state of Nebraska to get a snapshot of conservation careers, organizations, and to learn about the biodiversity of Nebraska. They visit with professionals from Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, Audubon, the Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium, Fontenelle Forest Nature Center, the University of Nebraska, Crane Trust, The Arbor Day Farm, and more!
“Rowe Sanctuary is the ideal location to showcase a career path in the natural sciences and natural resource conservation and is happy to support such a great opportunity for kids” says Cody Wagner, Conservation Program Manager. The internship also encourages the students to work hard and learn new skills. “Field work is no picnic and we often refer to it as “type 2 fun”, which essentially is a type of unconventional fun that takes perspective. With the heat and bugs and hard work comes adventure and exploration and the chance to learn new things about the world” says Amanda Hegg, Rowe’s Senior Conservation Associate. During this year’s program, the students spent two days at Rowe Sanctuary learning about the Platte River and surrounding grasslands while immersed in the ecosystems during activities like hiking and trail maintenance, digging invasive thistles, and birding.
The students experience also included an opportunity to see how Rowe’s conservation team uses technology to track conservation activities and inform big picture management at the Sanctuary. Students were introduced to ESRI’s ArcGIS program suite, tools that are used daily throughout the conservation world and help Rowe staff to gather useful data such as where populations of invasive plants are found in what years, what birds are utilizing parts of Rowe, where conservation activities will take place, and much more. The students were able to participate in data collection by using ESRI’s FieldMaps to record the locations of old river channels and meadow openings as part of a cottonwood savannah reconstruction Rowe Staff will soon undertake. Familiarity with these tools gives land managers a leg up in creating good habitat and is one of the most in demand skillsets for a budding conservationists.
In past years, Rowe’s conservation team has done everything with the students from kayak trips down the Platte River to having them plan and conduct a mock prescribed fire. “It’s our hope that we can show a variety of conservation avenues to help to spark an interest and demonstrate that everyone has a part to play in protecting our environment, empowering the next generation of conservationists with the tools and passion to make a change for the better in their natural world” says Cody. After their two week adventure officially ends and the students return to their regular lives, some may continue on in a career in conservation while others may find a different life path but conservation management interns will all know a bit more about nature in Nebraska and hopefully have good memories of their brief time spent on the prairies of the Platte.
