During the fall of 2014 and spring of 2015, I was an intern for the Vermont Urban and Community Forestry Program (VT UCF). Throughout this internship, I collaborated with VT UCF staff and partners to provide a steering committee with information and recommendations to assist the development of a backyard forestry stewardship program for Vermont landowners, develop marketing materials for the 2015 Official Vermont Arbor Day celebration, and create a collection of online profiles called Voices of Vermont Town Forests, in addition to a few other small tasks.

Throughout the fall, I took inventory of existing backyard forestry stewardship programs in the country and interviewed the coordinators of eight specific programs. With that information, I wrote a report outlining various recommendations for Vermont's future program, which will be developed by a steering committee led by Kate Forrer. This specific backyard forestry stewardship program will be the first of its kind in Vermont. It will cater to landowners with relatively small parcels of woodland that are often overlooked in other forestry programs and initiatives offered in the state.

During the spring, I supported VT UCF in implementing a new framework for the state's Arbor Day celebration. In the past, the Vermont Arbor Day celebration was held on the first Friday of each May at the Vermont Statehouse in Montpelier and consisted of a short ceremony to celebrate the 1-8 grade "Growing Works of Art" contest award winners and the Tree City USA inductees. In recent years, VT UCF was feeling like the event had lost its luster, so in 2014, they launched a new celebration model as part of a pilot program for an additional Arbor Day celebration in Vermont. The pilot was successful and this year's celebration will be hosted in a Vermont town forest again, supported with resources from VT UCF. In order to determine which town would host the event, I developed a written pitch calling for applications that was sent to conservation commissions in the state. Once the host community was chosen and the day's activities were planned, I drafted an announcement for VT UCF to use to publicize the event in their newsletter.

In addition to developing marketing materials for the 2015 Official Arbor Day celebration, I have also worked to highlight Vermont Town Forests and the ways in which community members, both at UVM and throughout Vermont, may become more involved in them. I did this by developing six profiles of advocates for various Vermont town forests and compiled Q&A sessions with them into an online collection called Voices of Vermont Town Forests. The six written works are available to read on the Vermont Urban and Community Forestry Program's website, which is a significant resource for information on Vermont's town forests.

I have also helped contribute to the increased visibility, and hopefully popularity, of town forests on social media by generating twenty facts about Vermont's town forests, which will be released throughout the year on the VT UCF Facebook and Twitter accounts. To increase awareness of town forests within the UVM community, I have also assisted senior NR 206 student Lydia Gim in determining effective marketing strategies to promote two guided walks in Centennial Woods during Earth Week.

When I decided to do this internship with VT UCF, I hoped to accomplish the following objectives:

I have valued my time as an intern with the Vermont Urban and Community Forestry Program because I believe that the roles I held within the organization have been a wonderful culmination of my education at the University of Vermont.

Throughout my three and a half years as an Environmental Studies student, I have made engaging with the local environment, and the people who also enjoy it, the cornerstone of my academic and experiential education. My academic background within the Environmental Studies Program prepared me for this internship. Three courses from which I gained knowledge that have been especially helpful during this experience are Introduction to Ecopsychology, Sustainability Education, and Landscape Natural History.

The principles I learned in Andy Fisher's Ecopsychology course provided me with the knowledge that connecting with more-than-human life is critical in maintaining the wellbeing of humans and our society. With this, I felt confident encouraging community members to get outside of the confines of their cars, homes, schools and workplaces to reconnect with the land, trees, water and wildlife in Vermont town forests. Having public celebration events like Arbor Day increases the sentiment of natural majesty in our state and helps boost support for the engagement with, and stewardship of, ever-important trees.

Sustainability Education helped me understand effective ways in which to facilitate this reconnection that is so prominent in ecopsychology. During this internship, I adapted the pedagogy and methods that I learned through Tom Hudspeth's course to strategically educate and inspire community members in becoming stewards of land in Vermont. I used his lessons especially when I was making recommendations for the new educational backyard forestry stewardship program and deciding on the wording I used in the outreach materials for the Arbor Day celebration.

Through the course Landscape Natural History, I became comfortable identifying local tree species and increased my understanding of forest management practices. This scientific background knowledge was a necessary foundation to have while working within an organization specifically focused on forestry. Heather Fitzgerald's Landscape Natural History helped educate me in the significant ways in which local Vermont woods have been both positively and negatively impacted from different forms of forest management in the past. This especially put into perspective the need for organizations such as VT UCF to provide programming that educates communities to care for their woods responsibly for years to come. I felt confident advocating for a backyard forestry stewardship program, as well as sustainable exploration and maintenance of Vermont town forests, with the knowledge I gained from these three courses and other activities of which I was a part during my four years at the University of Vermont.