Summer internship at Reforest the Tropics

This summer I had the pleasure of interning with Reforest the Tropics (RTT), a non-profit organization based in Mystic, CT whose mission is to “make a tangible contribution to global sustainability through environmental education and applied research on carbon-offset farm forests in the tropics.” The environmental education aspect is still growing, but currently RTT is teaching K-8 students at select schools in Eastern Connecticut about climate change, sustainability, tropical reforestation, and more. As an intern for the education coordinator this past summer, my responsibilities were centered around a main goal of digitizing and/or creating online lessons about the climate crisis for grades 3 through 8. Through this internship I was able to develop my technological skills, practice my Spanish, and learn about environmental education for children and the importance of that in relation to climate change. In addition, this internship helped prepare me for my senior project in the Goodwin-Niering Center for the Environment. For my senior project I will examine tropical forestry and restoration approaches of different organizations in a theoretical manner from both a scientific and marketing standpoint. I plan to determine the most effective tropical forest restoration methodologies through the comparison of tropical restoration organizations and previous research on tropical forest restoration