As I sit at the airport processing the last 49 days of my life, I can’t help but think that in this moment is exactly where I am supposed to be. I am leaving my placement 2 weeks earlier than planned due to a family emergency. However amazing those two weeks could have been absolutely does not take away from the time I did have, the people I met and the immense pride I feel having participated in this project. There were times I felt defeated and invisible, frustrated and disappointed, sad and even more sad, but those were far outweighed by the times I felt impactful, excited, successful, proud and lucky.

Project Progress

There has been one month and a half that I have been here in Rio de Janeiro with CI. After, researching a lot, discussing with my coworkers, and constantly updating my strategy, I finally defined the variables I will use to prioritize areas for restoration in the Tome Acu microregion, Para state. This process was long because I didn’t have a reference study from CI-Brazil of prioritization at the property scale. Previous studies were done for the whole Amazon, which is a very large scale, and many of the methods and data used did not fit into my scale. Something that is helping me a lot is to ask for feedback from my coworkers. As I am constructing a new methodology and in a very short period, it was great to ask for feedback from people in the office. They provided me with very good additions to my project. Now I have a group of variables that I believe will predict the most important areas for restoration in the project.

It’s always a bittersweet moment when something you worked so intensely at comes to an end. I have since completed my seven-week field season of searching for King and Yellow Rails at 18 various field sites across Wisconsin. I’ve had more crazy experiences happen to me than I ever thought I would with this project, but isn’t that what life’s all about? For as many times as I’ve been scared being solo on the surveys or complained about all the bugs, that is nothing compared to travelling to all these hidden gem locations with the most gorgeous sunsets and meeting talented, genuine individuals that care enough to help me find these rare birds.

It is now my ninth and last week of summer placement at the UW-Extension Natural Resources Institute (NRI) and I can finally say with pride that I am succeeding in my goal of developing logic models for each environmental program of the Institute’ land and water program area. I am also very close to completing the logic model for the Natural Resources Institute. But more than that, I finally put some faces to the programs.

With my placement wrapping up it’s a good time to reflect on how my work has been going, how the program and its curriculum has prepared me, and the challenges I’ve faced. I’ve completed my first deliverable (the report including all the maps), and this week I’m finishing up the second deliverable.

Well it’s the home-stretch now and man can I feel it! The cycle of evening meetings and additional weekend hours in the office has slowly, but surely been grinding me down. I fell ill this past weekend and realized, once I missed a full day of work, how little spare time I have to shuffle around. Still, I learned long ago that I work happiest with my time at a premium. As the weeks and days left wind away, I also feel more confident that this work has and can continue to provide the purpose I had been seeking since I decided to pursue a career in environmental science. It’s rewarding to dive in each day as I add to and pare down my deliverables. Even though that’s only as glamorous as multitudes of word documents and tables, the related meetings out in the communities provide a tangible reminder of my motivation and the benefits of this work.

Winding Down

Over the last few weeks, I have been working on redesigning the map for Warner Park and it has been going really well! The ideas I have come up with seem to flow well with the concepts we are trying to incorporate on the map. I took into consideration all the suggestions and criticisms made at the last meeting and tried to create something that was more visual and more appealing. I was able to network with some people at Clean Lakes Alliance and found myself working with Ashlyn Mehlhaff who is the development director for CLA. At her last job she helped design a few maps and had some really great infographic ideas for me!

In my time with the Ice Age Trail Alliance I have contributed to hundreds of children’s experiences in the Wisconsin outdoors. I have helped to set a fire in these children which I can see burning strong. They are passionate and excited about the outdoors. However, just like a prairie fire, passion and excitement can burn out in a flash. They both must be rekindled periodically over the years. While experiences along the trail will undoubtedly influence these children in the future, I wanted to create a more permanent contribution to environmental education along the Trail.