Last summer, Cat Wang ’23 reached out to a local nature preserve in her hometown, the Albany Pine Bush Preserve Commission, and was able to secure an internship position with its educational team for five weeks. Once there, she co-led different environmental education excursions with her supervisor for kids between the ages of 4–14 and of various abilities.
Her main goals were to teach kids about the importance of conservation, the uniqueness of the Pinebush’s ecosystem, and foster an appreciation for nature. Activities with the kids included catching and identifying insects, hiking experiences on the trails, and helping them on nature scavenger hunts.
She was also given an array of tasks: undergoing animal certification to be able to handle the resident turtles and give kids presentations on them, creating a staff bulletin board, and supporting the other teams such as the biological conservation team on their environmental monitoring projects (bird banding, vegetation surveys, measuring well depths), and the land stewardship team with the maintenance of the preserve.
Colgate and its generous alumni and parent donors offer grants to support students’ living costs and supplemental expenses to pursue unpaid and underpaid summer experiences. Learn more about Colgate summer funding.