AYRW: Uplifting the youth and our local environment

This fall I have been interning at Austin Youth River Watch, or AYRW for short. AYRW is a non-profit organization and supports both students in the Austin area and our local environment. High-school students in their organization are called, “river watchers” and learn environmental education while being supported in a variety of ways. It has been amazing to intern at an organization whose goal is to provide environmental education because that is something that my high school lacked. The organization also actively protects the native ecosystem. This is accomplished primarily through water quality testing at various sites along the Colorado River and its tributaries and performing restoration projects by introducing native flora. 

I have enjoyed my internship so much because the organization and my supervisors allowed me to tailor the internship to my interests. As I am interested in restoration projects, I have actually been tasked with leading a restoration project on November 13, 2021. Leading up to this date, I have been maintaining a large number of native plants that will eventually be transplanted at Roy G. Guerrero Park. However, watering and weeding these plants has been just part of the work I do in preparing for this project. This internship has also allowed me to improve my professional communication. I have communicated with several organizations in the lead-up to the project, and I have also assigned individual roles and duties to other interns for the upcoming project. It has been amazing to be tasked with work that is actually contributing to my professional development and giving me a chance to improve upon my weaknesses. 

Recently, I have also been tasked with the responsibility of creating and teaching a lesson plan to students in the after-school program. Up until this point in the semester, I had been focusing more on the restoration side of their organization. But in these last few months, I will be gaining some experience in environmental education. The lesson plan that I am currently designing is focused on electronic waste. From explaining the impacts of chemical leaching to describing the options to dispose of electronic waste, I wanted to design a lesson plan that would impact every student. Although I have not yet been deeply immersed in the environmental education side of the organization, it is the main focus of AYRW. Any students interested in pursuing environmental education would be doing themselves a disservice to not look into AYRW. 

I can truly say I am always excited to go into my internship, and that is because I am always learning or doing something new. There is nothing repetitive about interning at Austin Youth River Watch. I spent two workdays building a chicken wire fence around the vegetable garden at the AYRW headquarters. The organization uses the garden as a teaching tool for growing healthy food, and a fence was needed to stop pests from stealing the crop before the students could see their work come to fruition. One week I assisted another intern whose major project was creating a rainwater catchment garden. It was super interesting to learn about green landscaping in an area like Central Texas, where drought can rear its ugly head. Creating this rainwater catchment garden would allow the garden to hold moisture for a longer amount of time, and collect natural runoff water. Every two to three weeks throughout the semester I have participated in a river clean-up at Barton Springs with the members of AYRW. About bi-weekly we kayak through Barton Springs and pick up trash both in the creek and along the riparian edges of the creek. I highly recommend interning at AYRW to any students in the field of environmental science. The internship is catered to each individual intern, and you can truly focus on gaining the skills that are best for your professional development.

Written By Austin Myatt