Our education program was gifted with two stellar interns this spring! Kyle Blunt, now a recent graduate of the University of Southern Maine, interned during his final semester of college.

He provided valuable support during our school vacation week camps, Winter Wildlife Day, and Earth Day Celebration. Kyle also participated in docent training, assisted with the creation of education program materials, and helped to digitize years-worth of program evaluations. Kyle, Suzanne, Linda, and Kate took an education staff field trip to Harvard's Museum of Natural History in March.

For two weeks in May/June, Kennebunk High School senior Andrea Dest interned at the Reserve. She helped conduct fish research, participated in bird banding demonstrations, created a digital map with ArcGIS that demonstrates the geographic reach of our school programs across New England, and even used her artistic talent to create a new promotional bird banding sign! Andrea will be headed off to the University of Vermont's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences in the fall, where she plans to major in nutrition and food science. Many thanks to Kyle and Andrea for their help in this first half of 2015. Our education team and programs were made stronger because of their efforts!

June signals the beginning of our summer camp season as we welcome Ellen Gawarkiewicz and Steffanie Munguia aboard as summer camp staff! Ellen returns for her second season as Camp Coordinator after recently returning from Nepal, where she worked for nearly a year as a Fulbright Fellow in an elementary school (to learn more about Ellen's experience in Nepal, join us for her Lunch 'n Learn in August). Steffanie, a biology and environmental policy student at the University of South Florida, will serve in the Camp Assistant role through NOAA's Hollings Scholar Program. Both Ellen and Steffanie have extensive experience in the field of environmental education, and we are thrilled to have them with us for ten weeks this summer! Ellen and Steffanie tested out our kayaks on the Little River on Monday during our kayak leaders' pre-season paddle. They are looking forward to spending time on the water later this month with campers aged 13-15 during the Earth Stewards camp the week of June 29. We still have spaces left in all of our camps, so call Ellen at 646-1555 x 142 to register! Full scholarships are available.