The two months since I have started the internship have passed way too quickly. But as a REEF marine conservation intern, there’s so much outreach and education to spread, as well as take in, what else could you expect? This week was spent painting new fish plaques for a donation program REEF uses to help build its sponsorship. This fundraising campaign is called The Giving REEF, and if you donate a set amount of money you can have a species with your name displayed on our fence. Fellow intern Jessica Sellers and I spent an afternoon harnessing our creative energies to design some brilliant-looking fish.
Then it was all about fish identification. Stacey Weinstock, another fellow REEF intern, and I prepared and presented a fish id lesson to a very enthusiastic group of 32 ninth-grade students that came by the REEF headquarters.
That evening, the interns all sat for our own bi-weekly intense fish identification lecture by two expert volunteer fish surveyors, Allison and Carlos Estape. I was pretty sure I knew all my fish before I started learning what I really didn’t know, but now I’m confident about those pesky damselfish and juvenile parrotfish for sure! It was back in the water the next day for some lionfish research dives and fish surveying with Allison and Carlos.
