Three graduating high school students have completed a spring internship established by the Norwalk Land Trust a decade ago to enhance interest in science education.
They described the experience as extremely rewarding and reported developing a far-reaching appreciation for open space as a community resource and the wondrous workings of nature.
John Moeling, the president of the land trust, said that at the same time the regular volunteers that drive the nonprofit learned from the three seniors how to elevate communication by utilizing social media like Facebook.
“It was a great two-way connection,” Moeling reported.
The three seniors are Sarah Fitzgerald, 18, and Katrina Trentos, 17, of Wilton High School and Lauren Rutledge, 17, of Darien High School. Fitzgerald is bound for the University to Denver to study anthropology, Trentos to Trinity College in Hartford and Rutledge to Georgetown.
Environmental champion Marny Smith introduced the internships in 2007 as an outside-the-classroom outreach by the Norwalk Land Trust, a volunteer-driven nonprofit that is steward to 27 parcels of open space in Norwalk covering 89 acres.
Smith and the students are among the 27 volunteers who guided spring field trips to the Farm Creek Nature Preserve for 980 fourth-grade students from Norwalk’s 12 primary grade schools.
The seniors also picked up trash and cleared invasive species of plants at Farm Creek, the White Barn Preserve and Hoyt Island where they saw two bald eagles nesting and a doe and her fawn in the brush.
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