Conservation internships familiarize students with town, nature

Before Cailyn Chien and Owen Gold donned white and proceeded through the Town Green at graduation earlier this month, they were outside pulling up the invasive garlic mustard that had spread around the area.

The seniors ended their high school careers with a two-week internship in Weston’s Conservation Department. It gave the two a chance to learn about the full scope of conservation work through researching policy and handling plants throughout the town.

“It’s such a great opportunity to do a completely different type of learning than what we’ve been doing for the last 12 years,” Gold said.

At the end of their senior year, Weston students are given two weeks to complete an internship to explore potential future careers and gain hands-on experience.

The internship gave both students a chance to get hands-on experience in a field of interest before heading to college. Gold is headed to University of Michigan in the fall to study biology. Chien will pursue a degree in psychology at McGill University in Montreal, where she hopes to research the impact of climate change on mental health.

Working with a town department, which relies heavily on volunteers, also showed Chien that she could become involved in projects that she enjoys outside of work.

“It was great to be able to meet these people and envision what my own career could be because a lot of them have their own jobs, and then they volunteer on the side,” she said. “I didn’t know that before.”

Their time with the Conservation Department showed both students how the subjects they studied at Weston High School are applied in the field, in this case how rapidly invasive species can spread and how difficult they are to manage. Gold said he had to resort to a pickaxe to remove glossy buckthorn near College Pond.

The internship introduced them to areas of Weston they were unfamiliar with. Although Gold is headed to the midwest in the fall, he said while he is here, he plans to hike the town’s trails.

“I’ve lived in Weston basically my whole life and I was going on trails I’d never seen before,” Gold said. “It was awesome to get out there and get to know them…I got to learn things that you would never learn in school.”

Learning first hand how work gets done has brought both students closer to their hometown.

“I feel way more connected to Weston and more knowledgeable than before,” Chien said. “I’ve actually participated in so many things and met people who are really involved in Weston.”