As a student from High Tech High, I received the opportunity to partake in a four-week long internship immersion to experience the working world outside the classroom. We had the chance to intern at any organization we were interested in as long as they were accepting interns. I was lucky enough to intern with San Diego Coastkeeper, where I would complete a project that I could present at the end. My job was to create five posters that would be used at the Walk the Watershed event on February 5, 2011 in Swan Canyon.

Walk the Watershed is an event that gives students who live inland of the Pueblo Watershed a chance to learn at different educational stations consisting of watershed models, native seed planting, photography and art, recycling, water quality monitoring, green gardening, pollution prevention and watershed ecology.

Before I started the posters, I took a visit to Swan Canyon with Coastkeeper’s Dylan Edward to see what the canyon was like and to get a feel for the improvements needed to better the canyon’s health and ultimately improve water quality in the bay. The posters I created are going to be used to help teach the students at the event about the watershed. The information includes where the toxins and bacteria come from, wildlife in the canyon, tips for keeping the canyon healthy and how wetlands clean out water.

The posters are just a small portion of the learning that will take place at Swan Canyon that day. Coastkeeper and partnerning organizations will offer other educational stations and projects.

There are students from all over San Diego coming to the event but you do not have to be one to enjoy the canyon’s natural beauty, so we hope to see you there!