Another highlight from this internship was attending the Vegetation Rapid Assessment Releve workshop put on by the California Native Plant Society in Yosemite National Park.\u00a0 This workshop was highly beneficial in that it taught me a vegetation assessment method that I was unfamiliar with.\u00a0 But of course, the real highlights of the trip came after working hours when my fellow interns and I were able to explore the park.\u00a0 This was my first visit to Yosemite, and I was quite awestruck by its beauty.\u00a0 Of course, the valley was beautiful, but I also very much enjoyed walking through the many Sequoiadendron giganteum<\/em> trees of the Mariposa grove at sunset.<\/p>\n The skill that I enjoyed building upon the most during my time here in Carson City, and will likely be among the most useful going forward, was plant identification.\u00a0 I learned plant ID in a completely backwards way.\u00a0 Assisting with research projects during my master\u2019s program, I learned to recognize individual species within the project area.\u00a0 From there I slowly worked up the hierarchy, recognizing some genera and families.\u00a0 From my many hours here with my nose in a microscope and eyes glued to the pages of Intermountain Flora<\/em>, I have gained a strong understand of plant taxonomy and classification.\u00a0 I can now pick out differences between families, genera and species for a wide range of Great Basin plants.\u00a0 Further, I am now comfortable with using a dichotomous key and the language associated with it, so I will be able to apply my ID skills to whatever ecosystem I end up in next.<\/p>\n One thing I heard over and over again during my master\u2019s program was, \u201calways try to add to and strengthen the tools in your professional tool belt.\u201d\u00a0 In a nutshell, this internship did exactly that.\u00a0 A big thanks to CBG and especially my mentor, Dean Tonenna, for providing the opportunity for this awesome experience.<\/p>\n Sunset at Indian Creek Campground, where we hosted two educational summer camps for 7th and 8th graders<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n A smoky haze from the fire in Kings Canyon National Park envelops us while seed collecting adjacent to the John Muir Wilderness<\/p><\/div>\n Couds while ESR monitoring<\/p><\/div>\n Heterotheca villosa<\/em>, key ID characteristic is it’s “double pappus”. Look closely and you will see two distinct lengths<\/p><\/div>\n Asclepias mexicana<\/em> with Bombus<\/p><\/div>\n A salt flat in Dixie Valley, at the eastern edge of our district<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n Sunset Rainbow<\/p><\/div>\n Myself (left) and fellow intern, John, philosophizing<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week is the last in an amazing ten month internship with the BLM in Carson City, NV.\u00a0\u00a0 When I arrived here fresh out of grad school, I had plenty of education, but very little real world working experience in … Continue reading ![\"Indian_Creek1\"](\"https:\/\/dev-clm-blog.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/20150813_162916.jpg\")
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