Grace has been out on the Great Marsh pulling invasive pepperweed before it can seed, but that’s not all she’ll be doing for the river.
Hey everyone! My name is Grace Evans and I am this summer’s Kerry Mackin intern. You may remember me as the 2018 Environmental Education Apprentice where I worked in a very similar fashion. Working at Ipswich River has been a positive experience and provided greater engagement with my community. I am very grateful to be welcomed back for a second summer.
I’ve lived my whole life in Ipswich and have spent many recreational hours paddling and swimming in the river. It has always been a special place for me and I am thrilled to play a part in keeping it clean and healthy. I am a rising junior at Colorado College with a major in Organismal Biology and Ecology and a minor in Environmental Studies. I am interested in the relationship between anthropogenic pollution and environmental education and activism. Working at IRWA allows me to improve upon outreach and educational skills along with experience in the field.
In the summer of 2018, I worked on organizing and creating lesson plans for youth camp attendees focusing on the impacts of pollution and climate change in their watershed. I traveled to different schools and summer camps throughout the summer to teach my curriculum in addition to hosting groups at the Riverbend headquarters. Along with these duties, I was very interested in the scientific projects that I assisted Ryan O’Donnell with. These ranged from conducting water quality tests and macroinvertebrate counts that track the health of the Ipswich River to monitoring an underwater camera that mapped fish migration. Most weeks, I was tabling at different farmers’ Markets to raise awareness of the organization and encourage new memberships. While this summer has been drastically altered due to COVID-19, I hope to provide similar COVID-friendly services.
This summer, I will be splitting my time between working in the Riverbend office and pulling Pepperweed from our marsh ecosystems. Pepperweed is an invasive species that exist in the higher elevation areas of coastal wetlands. For the last decade, Mass Audubon has been organizing and tracking Pepperweed pulling in the North Shore. We are always looking for volunteers to help us pick during the Pepperweed season, which spans from late June to early August. Please reach out to me ([email protected]) if you are interested. When I’m not pulling Pepperweed, you can find me at our Riverbend headquarters maintaining our boats and ensuring that we have cleaning supplies to lower the spread of COVID. I will be working toward creating online educational activities that can be done from home or socially distanced to accommodate for the pandemic.
I am thrilled to be back at Ipswich River this summer and can’t want to (distantly) see all your faces on the river this summer.
Hi Grace! So thrilled to see you are back at IRWA! Maybe we can come up with some joint town of Ipswich/IRWA projects this summer… Hope to see you soon!