Week of October 24

What I have learned about my internship

     To be honest, I thought that Keep Forsyth Beautiful was just an organization that went around planting trees at various schools and picking up trash on the side of the road. But, upon diving into my internship I have discovered that Keeping Forsyth beautiful involves much more. This includes actions like monitoring methane levels in a local landfill and monitoring oxygen levels in local streams. Now, I am really enjoying my internship and all of the various activities and people that I get to interact with every week.

     This internship surprised me with all of the different jobs that I get to take part in once a week. I have done everything from touring a Advanced Disposal recycling facility and viewing a water filtration facility to monitoring the water coming out of dams throughout the county. I have really enjoyed getting to experience, however quick, the different careers that I may go into.

    From the routine parts of this internship, I have learned what goes on behind the scenes to make the job run smoothly, from all the phone calls to the paper work that I have seen take place over this internship. Now, credit to my mentor for making my 3 hours a week as action-packed as possible with as little as the day to day work as possible. But, the little "boring" stuff that I see is important to witness because that is what happens at every job. There is always the fun, but the less fun usually happens more often. To sum it up, I now know why the common saying is that you have to love what you do, or you will not work very long there.

Week of October 17

     The article that I chose is going to be very useful in my research because I intend to find the different fields of engineering that use, transform, or help the environment in any way, shape, or form. This article, being what it is about, fits perfectly into this quest because of how Shah used his engineering mindset to further the enforcement of ocean fishing. With this in mind, I intend to use this article and others to understand how large of a role that the environment plays in every different engineering field. The article adds just another application that the environment provides for other fields of engineering to focus on.


     This article opened my mind to better understand that environmental engineering is not the only field that involves working with the environment. I hope to find more articles like this one to discover other people, like me, who enjoy working with the environment. I appreciate when other people involve their passions with the environment because that is what I see myself doing in the near future.

Week of October 3

Annotated Bibliography Graphic Organizer

Phillip Thompson

Source / Bibliography: (APA Format)	Bloch, H. (2015, December 17). The Rocket-Science     Environmentalist. Retrieved October 14, 2016, from http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rocket-science-environmentalist-1450368433
Annotation:	Becoming an environmental fanatic is something that everyone can do. Just like Mr. Shelbe, who was a rocket-scientist originally, realized his fanaticism after attending several environmental seminars. He discovered that he could use his aeronautical skillset to help advance the field of environmental science and engineering. Shah combines the fields of mobile technology, satellite data, and drones to monitor and regulate the overfishing all across the world’s oceans.
Potential Quotes:	“Shah combines the fields of mobile technology, satellite data, and drones to better protect the environment.” “People used to wonder, who’s this engineering guy coming here to do things.” “He envisions an Internet of environmental things in which entire nature reserves can be connected via smart technology to spot and reduce threats.”
Assessment:	This source is credible because it was published by Wall Street Journal. The author also seems to write with a very objective tone, which implies that she does not have any bias on this topic because she is looking at just the facts of the situation, alone.
Reflection:	This source will be best used as a “recruitment” tactic in that Shah being a rocket-scientist, which is very far from environmental science, can become an engineer in the field of the environment.