Meet WELCOME intern Liam Flanagan

We are lucky to have three Beloit Memorial High School students out at the Center this spring, as part of the Careers Academy program, and funded by our NSF grant. In this post, we’ll let Liam Flanagan introduce himself and his projects.

So far here at the Welty internship I have done a great mix of different tasks! One of the first tasks we worked on was cutting up burnable size brush for the Winter Fest fire pit. Bennett (another intern) and I were able to meet the Rock County Conservationists, and they are even having Bennett and I working on a project for them as well. Weather permitting, we will go down near the park’s entrance and work on cutting brush and small trees to clean up the forest alongside the main entrance road. I wish we would have taken before and after photos, but it is looking good so far! I am excited to continue working on this project.

 Liam is using a makeshift clinometer by looking through a drinking straw and reading the angle at which a bolt is hanging from the clipboard. A clinometer measures the slope of a study site, which could potentially affect erosion rates and, therefore, the soil layers.

Also, we have worked on our project plans for our GLOBE protocol. I was interested in studying the different particle sizes in different types of soil in each ecosystem here at Big Hill Park, (prairie, forest and wetland). So far on that project Darien and I went out and did my site locations throughout the park in the three different ecosystems. I have nine different sites around the park that I will soon find a day to head out and start collecting my soil samples!

Lastly, our training just started up for the upcoming Maple Sugar field trip. Aaron walked us interns and several volunteers through the different stations of the field trip, and the first group is coming already next Friday! It has been a great experience so far here as the WELCOME interns, and I am looking forward to the rest of the time spent here!