It is nearing the end of July, and it is like a furnace outside - except muggier. The sky is a pellucid blue, the prairie grasses are ebulliently sending up shoulder-high seed stalks, and work at Cedar Creek is proceeding with full force. The LTER crew of interns is done with their weeding and has moved on to clipping and sorting. The BioCON crew has just finished sorting root samples and is moving on to other tasks. I am impressed with how busy and confident all the interns are as they bustle around the labs and the fields. ‘What exactly does it mean to be an intern?’ I wonder to myself amidst all of the activity. Happily, my fat, red dictionary is here to give me some input.

Intern1: v.t. to confine within prescribed limits, as prisoners of war.
I glance up at a group of interns filing in the side door of Cedar Creek’s main building. They are returning from doing surveys of fire-scarred trees in the oak savannah; they are red-faced and sweaty, but they are grinning and full of energy. Interns in some places may feel like they’re being interned, but I can safely say I have yet to encounter one that feels that way at Cedar Creek. “We’re spoiled here,” Elizabeth Bentz (whom everyone calls EB) of Lake Ozark, Missouri told me in an interview.

Weeding, one of the biggest jobs for interns at Cedar Creek	Still weeding

All of the interns that I have spoken with have mentioned that they’re having a lot more fun than they had expected to in an internship. The research coordinators for both LTER and BioCON were once interns here, so they know how to create a good experience. “They definitely know how to keep us motivated,” said Sarah Christman, an intern from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The coordinators have brought the interns Popsicles and Dove bars out in the hot fields. They have given them pizza parties and brought them to the movies. Even more important still, is the variation in field experience that the coordinators try to provide for the interns. “I think they know some of the tasks are kind of monotonous,” explained EB.

Intern2: n. someone, as a student or recent graduate, working as an apprentice or trainee to gain practical experience in an occupation.
Nearly all of the interns at Cedar Creek are here to gain real work experience in ecology. This is an extremely important part of heading towards a career in science. You can know every fact there is to know about plant ecology; you can have read every book ever written on ecosystem theory; but if you do not know what kinds of experimental techniques are available or what they are used for, you will have a terrible time trying to design your own experiments. Jared Trost, the BioCON coordinator attested, “there’s a lot more value in knowing, ‘I want to know how this field compares to this field, so I need to look at these traits, and here are techniques I can use.”

Between the large-scale experiments of well-known principal investigators, the experiments of post-doctoral researchers, and the research of graduate students from the University of Minnesota, the ecological studies at Cedar Creek run the gamut of project types and sizes. This provides the interns with an impressive spectrum of techniques and skills to learn. They learn how to identify many plant species, how to clip, measure percent cover, take soil cores and root cores, how to wash roots, grind soil, take photosynthesis measurements and weigh biomass, plus they get a feel for mundane but absolutely necessary details like labeling and data organization. The most important lesson, however, is what the field methods are for and when to use them.

The LTER coordinator, Troy Mielke, told me that a number of the interns who come to Cedar Creek are interested in environmental science and hope someday to become involved in environmental policy. He thinks a strong practical background in ecology fieldwork is essential for them too. “It’s all well and good to go ‘rah rah’ for the environment,” he said, “but if you don’t know the scientific support you’ll just get cut down.”

Checking files for weighed plants	Recording plant species in the field

Intern3: adj. (Archaic). internal
Having a science internship props open doors to the inside of a scientific community. The Cedar Creek research coordinators pointed out that the interns here get to know some premier ecologists and see how the work of these ecologists is done. The interns are exposed to what Jared called the “big picture of science,” which includes not only the experiments, but also the procedures of getting funding and publishing papers.

Not everyone has the opportunity to get their practical experience at a place as renowned as Cedar Creek, and the interns seem well aware that they are working at a world-class institution. “Every day for a month, we’d be out on a hike or something and I’d think about it and I’d say ‘I feel so honored,’” Sarah said, “I’m reminded constantly.” Emily Palmquist, of Redwing, Minnesota, admitted, “I’m excited to be able to see it in textbooks and say, ‘Hey! I worked there.’”

Everyone agreed that Cedar Creek is also pretty unique in the way it brings together a large number of students from all over the U.S. “Other internships are usually just one or two interns – it’s cool to have so many,” said EB. Cedar Creek is not as isolated as many smaller research stations, and because the vast majority of the interns live here they have increased opportunities to interact with each other on many levels. When you have this many people, all interested in ecology, working and living together “you can get them talking about ecology,” explained Troy. “It’s the biggest benefit.”

“Get them talking” isn’t even the best way to describe it, for the conversations happen spontaneously. Most interns are delighted to be around and converse with people who share their interests. Emily declared that it’s great to be able to “talk science in a normal conversation.” Through their conversations the interns continue to explore ideas and broaden their ecological horizons even though the principal investigators can’t always be available for discussing or answering questions.
In end of the year surveys in the past, approximately 90% of the interns wrote that their very favorite part of working at Cedar Creek was the people. The social aspect of interning is quite central. Spending so much time together all summer, the interns get to know one another extremely well. So, it is no surprise that many of them form lasting friendships. They have ruckus games of softball together; they have theme parties together; they go camping together; they go out to eat together. But don’t worry; even during all this fun the interns never completely forget their ecological aspirations. Just a while ago they went out as a group to dinner at a funky restaurant, and the next day I learned that one of the interns, without thinking, identified the decorative leaves garnishing his dessert!

Being an intern is an experience that sticks with you, and has new meaning every time you look back on it, the research coordinators assured me. Through their years of coordinating they’ve discovered that the interns may not always think about it while they’re out in the field weeding, but after they leave they realize more and more fully just how much they learned about the big picture of science.

Weeding off of a bench	Weighing biomass