Internship

Assessment
Report:
Lady Bird
Johnson
Wildflower
Center

By Carolina A. Duncan
Environmental & Resource Studies,
B.S.
Nature and Heritage Tourism Minor
Environmental Interpretation
Certification

About Lady Bird Johnson

Wildflower Center
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
began as the National Wildflower
Research Center and has always been
a special place that introduces visitors
to the diversity of wildflowers and
native plants. It is truly a staple in the
Austin community, where nearly 800
volunteers devote their time and
people of all ages come to learn about
the environment. Currently, it is also a
research center for the University of
Texas. Not only does the Center
properly memorialize the work Lady
Bird Johnson accomplished, but it is
constantly evolving and operates a
dedicated mission for environmental
education.
The Center displays gardens containing native plants of the
Central Texas Hill Country, South and West Texas. The
Centers education programs for children and adults teach
people about their natural surroundings. The education
department provides activities, programs and information
while preserving the Centers mission, To conserve, restore
and create healthy landscapes.

My Supervisors

Tanya Zastrow M.Ed., Education Manager

Phone Number: (512) 232.0222
Email: tzastrow@wildflower.org
Notes: Tanya Zastrow is the manager of the education
department at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower
Center. She has seen the outcome of all my work
projects. Also, she was with me at an outreach event
project over prescribed burning that I created and
conducted for ExploreUT.
_______________________________________________________

Anjoli Fry B.S., Education Coordinator

Phone Number: (512) 232.0277
Email: afry@wildflower.org
Notes: Anjoli Fry was the supervisor whom I reported
to during my internship at the Lady Bird Johnson
Wildflower Center. She knows all of my responsibilities,
duties, additional tasks I was asked to do and projects I
worked on.
_______________________________________________________
Julie Graham M. Ed., Education Coordinator
Phone Number: (512) 232.0249
Email: jgraham@wildflower.org
Notes: Julie Graham was one of my supervisors at the
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. She has seen my
work ethic throughout my internship, including
observing me lead learning stations for young children,
creating and leading projects, perform office duties
and assist in any way that I could.

The Internship Position:

Education Intern

Responsibilities Include:
Assist and lead in the Mr. Smarty Plants Learning
Station program for school groups visiting the Center.
Develop and teach hands-on age appropriate activities
for public programs such as Sprouts (preschool
program) and Nature Play Hour (a weekly planned
activity).
Meet and greet self-guided visitors including youth
groups.
Work with, train and supervise volunteers during
programs and special events.
Organize, develop and maintain activities in a
childrens activity center called The Little House.
Assist education staff with various duties such as
educational programming, manual labor, office duties
and special events that involve the Education
Department.
Represent the Wildflower Center professionally at all
times, which included community outreach events.

Any Day Tasks

The Wildflower Center had me perform different various tasks
every day. There was never a day that was the same at the
Center, which required a lot of flexibility. I had to be prepared to
tackle anything that would be given to me, which included clean
up areas around the Center, format signage, organize large
spaces or utilize interpretive skills.
Office Duties:

Interaction:

Print, scan and copy a wide range of different documents, signage

or activity sheets.
Create an Excel spreadsheet that included math formulas to be
utilized for keeping track of attendance at events.
Create signage that could be used for activities, such as Nature Play
Hour.
Maintain strong communication between my supervisors and I via
email, phone and in person.
Interpersonal skills were necessary every day at the Center, having
to communicate with preschoolers, young children, teenagers,
adults and the elderly.
Interpretive skills were constantly used during verbal
communication with visitors and for projects.

Organization and Maintenance:

Organized the Little House closet and created a color-coded

inventory list so that future volunteers could use the materials
available to them and the visitors more often.
Organized the classroom closets, which included having to create
more space, consolidating, and prioritizing the needs of the
education department.
Maintained the Nature Build area, an area for kids to build anything
out of rocks, sticks and wood blocks, and the Little House, a
childrens activity center, constantly.

Nature Play Hour

Nature Play Hour is an invitation for all visitors to
explore the Family Garden at the Lady Bird Johnson
Wildflower Center with a guided activity from 10 am
11 am, every Saturday. This program is considered
informal and led by Anjoli Fry. Activities are inquiry
based to allow to guide a childs learning. Every week
features a different activity and is free to the visitors.
Activities included subjects such as compost critters,
nature journals, sun prints, aquatic creatures and
animal tracks. I assisted in development of the
animal tracks Nature Play Hour activity, called
Nature Tracks. It involved having kids use animal
track stamps that had the animal it belonged to
written on the stamp and also being able to use
play-dough to mold their own tracks from 3-D animal
tracks. For this activity, I pulled two books from the
Little House that involved animal tracks and created
its own signage. Nature Play Hour was always fun
and a guaranteed success with visitors, especially if it
was a sunny day outside.

Mr. Smarty Plants Learning

Stations
Mr. Smarty Plants Stations consist of five learning
stations with topics including pollination, habitats,
rocks and plants. They only occur during the fall and
spring. The stations for grades Kindergarten to 2 nd
grade are on Tuesdays and grades 3rd to 5th grade are
on Thursdays, at 9:30 am for both days. The size of
the school groups are usually 40-100 students. The
five learning stations with topics including pollination,
habitats, rocks and plants. The stations I assisted are
the Rock and Water, the Seed Balls and the Perfect Fit
Pollination Stations. During my internship, I was able
to perform stations for both age groups, which
included kids of all types of abilities. The Mr. Smarty
Plants Learning Stations would always leave a lasting
impression on the students and it was such a delight
every time.

Projects Created
Gifts to the Center
ExploreUT
Every year, at the University of Texas campus, there is a
public event for future students to attend to see what the
university offers or what its involved in. Since the Lady Bird
Johnson Wildflower Center is a research institution for the
University of Texas, the Center was invited to attend. The
Center has performed prescribed burnings before, but in
addition, the fire department was going to be located beside
the Centers table, so the Center wanted to put together an
interactive presentation about prescribed burnings. We also
were given gear and equipment that are used for prescribed
burns from the fire department so kids could wear and take
pictures with them. I was assigned with the task of the
presentation and the activity. In the end, I created a
sequence activity of how a prescribed burn would be
performed and a poster with information regarding
prescribed burns and why they are done. My supervisors
allowed me to create the activity and poster on my own.
During the event, they let me lead the entire day. The activity
proved to be successful when people who visited the table
had to critically think of the steps to take for a prescribed
burn. The following day, I received an email from Tanya
Zastrow, the Education Manager at the Center, stating I
represented the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
exceptionally well and that the work that I created was not
only successful for ExploreUT, but will be used for years to
come as well.

Projects Created
Gifts to the Center
ExploreUT

This is the poster I created for ExploreUT, over prescribed

burning, for the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

This is the sequence activity that I

created, which encouraged people
to critically think how a prescribed
burning is performed.

This is me in front of the Centers

table on the morning of ExploreUT.

Projects Created
Gifts to the Center
What Is It Like Outside?
Tabletop Felt Activity
It was only necessary to perform one project for my
internship, however, I wanted to do everything that I
could during my time at the Lady Bird Johnson
Wildflower Center, so I chose to provide another project.
There are tabletop activities in the Little House, a
childrens activity center. Anjoli had disclosed to me that
she took off one of the tabletop activities and needed to
replace it. One day while I was shopping at Michaels, I
found some felt on clearance. I took the concepts of
children having to perform weather recognition in class,
paper dolls and another activity Anjoli constructed using
a picture frame and felt. I placed hard thick poster
board, that I securely wrapped the felt I purchased
around, into picture frames that the Center was storing. I
chose picture frames with thick, flat backings to be able
to Velcro the felt board picture frame onto the tabletop.
Next, I found the best weather clip art, including plants,
insects, people and weather elements. The clip art
images were then cut and laminated for children to
create their own portrait of what the weather is like
outside. The signage for this activity was created by me
as well. The activity has proven to be a success so far
and my supervisor, Anjoli, is excited to have a new
tabletop activity in the Little House.

Projects Created
Gifts to the Center
What Is It Like Outside?
Tabletop Felt Activity

Top Photos:
Putting the activity together
Bottom Photo:
The completed activity as it currently is at the Center.

My Experience
My experience that I gained from the Lady Bird
Johnson Wildflower Center is invaluable. In such a
short amount of time, I have learned an incredible
amount. I have learned so much about informal
environmental education, including operations and
activities. Not only have I gained knowledge in the
fields of biology and ecology, but I have gained
interpretive,, interpersonal and office skills. In
comparison to the original job description, there was
never a day I worked that was similar. I was
continually asked to perform several different tasks.
When my supervisors requested me to do anything,
including projects or interpretive discussions, I took it
as an opportunity to learn. I believe the geography
department at Texas State University prepared me
well for this internship. The Nature and Heritage
minor program
assisted in obtaining basic
interpretive knowledge for the internship. Also, the
projects I have had to complete, along with the
presentations Ive had to perform, provided me with
confidence when presenting anything to the Lady
Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

This photo is of this years baby Great Horned

Owls from an owl that has nested at the Lady
Bird Johnson Wildflower Center for the last five
years.