By Ronica Stromberg
Sarah Springer took initiative as a freshman Husker and landed a paid internship this past summer at the Prairie Plains Resource Institute in Aurora.
Now a fisheries and wildlife sophomore, the Aurora native had visited the institute as part of high school science classes. In college, she followed the institute’s social media and saw they had offered internships in past years. She emailed them, telling about herself and asking about internships. The staff invited her in to talk and then acquired funding to support her for 10 weeks, from late May to early August, as a conservation and education intern.
Springer worked at four of the institute’s eight preserves, helping educate the public about Nebraska prairies and the outdoors. She helped with the Young Nebraska Ecologists program for high schoolers, the Youth Naturalist Program for middle schoolers and Summer Orientation About Rivers, two four-day camps for third through sixth graders. She planned Story Time at the Creek, in which she read a nature story to early elementary school students and led them in an activity related to the day’s story.
Springer also helped with prairie restoration and management, collecting seeds and planting them or plugs, and fundraising. She said she had not been looking forward to the fieldwork but found the worksites nice.
See more pictures of Sarah and read the rest of her summer adventure at https://snr.unl.edu/aboutus/what/newstory.aspx?fid=1173