Our Native Landscape Management Apprentices continue to learn land stewardship through invasive removal, botanical knowledge, and career development. Our Lead Naturalist, Emily Jackson, gives an account of their progress throughout the third quarter of 2024.

For the third quarter of 2024, we have slowed down the fast pace of summer to focus more on professional development with our apprentices. Our Saturdays start with a half hour of get-to-know-you questions to facilitate team bonding followed by a quiz to review the previous week's botany material. This is so the apprentices can feel confident in their knowledge of plants and get into a curious mindset.

We then move into our daily project, which has largely been revamping the playscapes this quarter. The apprentices are helping to improve the Stream Pod by removing invasives, creating more paths for children to take through the tall perennials, establishing a clearer boundary, and mulching the trails. We break for lunch together in the communal office before moving into our learning portion of the day.

The apprentices have learned about the importance of plants in the environment through action but are now learning technical aspects of botany, such as plant anatomy and reproduction. (We are very proud of the engagement they have shown during these lessons—regularly scoring very highly on their morning quizzes.) After everyone is confident on the day's material, we move into more generalized career readiness. This quarter the apprentices have been learning how to write neat, concise resumes and have been researching jobs and colleges they may one day pursue.

This upcoming quarter, we plan to continue teaching workplace competencies and hope to focus on mature, effective communication. We were also excited to welcome our apprentices back for a full week during their fall break and our last Campfire Concerts of the season!