Kate
Ritley
EnvS120
Internship Report
My work as the Northwest Renewable Energy Festival intern has been a
mixture of excitement and frustration.
I began the semester working with three other interns, Linnea, Tyler,
and Sarah, with the help of Kevin Scribner, on both the festival and on Earth
Day 2002. The internship had no
real direction and no leader, so it took a while to actually get going.
At
the beginning of the semester, after my first meeting with Kevin Scribner and
the first meeting for the Renewable Energy Festival, I determined that my goal
was to work on planning all aspects of the kids events for Energy Festival,
and possibly for Earth Day. This
was to entail figuring out the logistics of getting the kids to the fair, finding
a way to get the kids really involved in the fair (both before it, making projects,
and at the fair), and finding exhibitors, vendors, and teachers to be at the
fair specifically to educate and engage kids. The kids I refer to range in age
from kindergarten to high school.
Originally,
we thought Earth Day and Energy Festival might be in conjunction with each other,
but now we have decided that Renewable Energy Festival will be next September,
so the events will be separate. This
greatly altered my objectives for the internship.
After much confusion, we decided that Linnea and I would continue our
work on the Energy Festival, and Sarah and Tyler would work independently on
Earth Day.
I
began the internship by discussing the possibilities of involving kids in the
fair with Kevin Scribner. I have
attended every Energy Fair and internship meeting.
I began by contacting EEK (Environmental Education for Kids) about involving
kids. I also made contact with
the Earth Day intern from 2000, who in turn contact last year’s Earth Day intern.
Both are very excited to help out with Earth Day and/or Energy Fair.
I invited them to come to all of our internship meetings with Kevin Scribner.
I
did internet research about how to involve kids in environmental fairs (See
websites in log), and I joined
the Executive Committee and the Content/Agenda Committee for Renewable Energy
Festival. Before my internship
became focuses on just Energy Festival, I talked to Bob Carson about doing a
work day (similar to Make a Difference Day) for Earth Day instead of having
a fair (and we would have kids help us work on community projects like planting
trees), and then presented this idea to Kevin Scribner and the other interns,
and I believe they are going to use the idea.
At the Executive Committee meeting on October 23, I presented all that
I had done to date about involving kids in the festival.
We decided that we would also hold a poster contest in the spring, and
the winning poster would be rewarded and would be the main poster used to advertise
for the festival. Kevin had the
idea that the winner could also have a plaque his his or her name put on one
of the windmills, making it “his/her windmill”.
Kevin emailed me about a program that certifies schools as “Earth Friendly”,
and I then discussed the possibilities of this with EEK.
It would take a lot of work, but it is something I will look into, and
EEK would be interested in helping.
I met with a local business owner, Henry Savelesky, about working with kids. He is enthusiastic about education, and would like to sponsor a science-fair-project kind of contest for kids. He will reward the winner with $100! We planned to schedule the contest for the spring, and all projects completed will be displayed at the festival, along with all poster entries that were not chosen. We also discussed having older kids, maybe even high schoolers, work on designing electric cars.
General
Outline of Children's Events:
February/March
2002 we will have a poster design contest for kids (the winning poster will
be the poster used to advertise the festival); all entries will be displayed
at the festival, and winner may have a plaque with their name put on a windmill,
making it “their windmill”.
March/April
2002 we will have a renewable energy science project fair for the kids.
Winners will be monetarily rewarded, and all projects will be displayed
at the festival.
Have
a contest for designing/building an electric car.
Potential
Festival displays designed for kids include: a TV powered by pedaling a bicycle, an electric train powered
by solar panels, plus games, shows, and other hands-on activities
Through emails and meetings with many different people, I have compiled
a list of contacts that will be crucial to my work.
Kevin Scribner, Energy Fair
Karen Yager, Energy Fair
Sharon Johnson
Mike Mahahn, Walla Walla Community College science chair and ecology
club
I
had phone numbers, mailing addresses, and email addresses for all of these people.
Some I have not yet contacted but will next semester, some I have been
in close contact with, and from some I am awaiting a response.
When I began this internship I was overwhelmed by the idea of having
to try to track down people in the community to assist me, but it has been amazingly
easy to find these contacts.
This
internship has been a mixture of good and bad experiences so far.
I have really enjoyed working with Kevin and Linnea; they are both enthusiastic
and helpful. I am very impressed
by the Energy Festival meetings I have attended.
They have been efficient, informational, and interesting.
The people at these meetings have had good ideas and have done an excellent
job remaining on task and being professional.
Karen Yager has done wonderful work leading the meetings and coming to
them prepared with an agenda and a handout of all pertinent information.
It
has also been amazing to see people’s responses to my asking for help.
Jennifer Weiczorek has maintained
excellent contact with me; she is eager to help in any way possible, and has
provided me with much hope to keep working on this.
Anna Taft has sent me extensive lists of contacts and is excited about
the possibilities of involving all local elementary schools.
There
has been a lot of frustration along the way, and I am still frustrated about
many aspects of the internship. To
begin, I was very frustrated that there was nothing I could actually do.
Kevin Scribner wanted me to establish my own set of goals and decide
what I wanted to contribute to the Energy Festival.
No one knew if Earth Day and Energy Fair would be in conjunction, so
it was hard to start actively planning Earth Day.
There was nothing that I could actually do to help with Energy Festival,
since the people at the meetings did not seem concerned about accomplishing
anything right away. Much of this
problem has now disappeared since I have decided that I am going to organize
all the kids activities. I can
contact people and plan activities independent of the other interns or the Energy
Festival committees, since I am focused only on kids events.
Another source of frustration has been in maintaining contact with people.
It seems that there is always some confusion or mix-up in scheduling.
Despite these difficulties, I have learned a lot from this internship. I have learned how to make contacts in a community where I do not really know anyone. More importantly, I have learned how to begin the organization of a major event such as Renewable Energy Festival. In the future I plan to organize many community events, such as fairs and fundraisers, perhaps as part of my career or outside of it. Working with the Energy Festival has taught me the importance of professionalism, preparedness, organization, and efficiency. I have also learned to take initiative and find ways to work independently when a group is not working, but without disturbing the other members of the group.