Summer Internship Program: Virginia Seafood AREC - Position 2

Primary Program Area Focus: ANR

1. Describe your plans for this internship.  (i.e. What specifically will the intern be doing?)

The Virginia Tech Coastal Collaborator/Virginia Seafood AREC seeks creative, quick-thinking, and highly organized individuals to serve as Coastal Resilience Interns. The Interns will work collaboratively as a team to help VTCC staff write news articles, flyers, grants, reports and social media posts, support events, conduct research on coastal resilience issues, work with data and create GIS maps, attend meetings and help with occasional coastal resilience field work with our partners. Additionally, the interns will support community resilience efforts such as water quality assessments and learn about the seafood industry. Some sample field activities include supporting STEM summer camp activities, beach pollution clean-up and living shoreline field work.  Sample office activities include researching for VCE publications, assisting with VCE workshops and trainings, designing flyers, creating social media posts, and GIS analysis.

2.  Describe the knowledge / skills you expect the intern to gain from this experience.The intern will work closely with the 4-H Agent, Extension staff, and Community Partners to gain knowledge/skills in:

The Coastal Resilience Intern should be a quick learner who will gain experience with writing skills, communication skills, problem solving, file management, Geographic Information Systems, mentorship/education program experience, social media experience, organization skills. coastal resilience field work, and knowledge of sea level rise and flooding issues related to Hampton Roads.

3.  How will the intern learn about the breadth of VCE and our various program areas?

The Coastal Resilience Intern will support a wide variety of internal and external coastal resilience extension activities and projects through the Virginia Tech Coastal Collaborator (VTCC) which is part of the Virginia Seafood AREC. Additionally, although this is a primarily ANR focused internship, the interns will be exposed to and learn about other VCE programs such as 4H and FCS through collaborations and trainings.