Over the internship period, I have learned many different things in many different areas. I also was able to improve on some of my abilities. Working for Ogallala Commons has helped me learn more about my community and its water. One of the parts of my job that I was able to learn about was groundwater.
In the La Junta and Rocky Ford areas, there are two ponds that are storage areas for water. The water is later used to replenish the groundwater that has been taken out of the ground in the past. Over the internship period, I was responsible for making sure the ponds were clean and were letting the right amount of water into the pond from the water ditch. I was able to learn how our community preserves water and is able to store it for later use. Another thing that I recently learned about were soil probes. With soil probes, they take data from the soil in the ground, and we use a computer to collect the data from the probes. I was able to learn how to collect the data from the probe and convert it into a usable form. One of the soil probes that I collected data from was located in McClave, Colorado.
Lastly, one of the jobs that I did that helped improve my own ability in entering data was creating and entering data into databases. Over the internship period, I entered data into many different databases. Some deal with properties of water, while others deal with the properties of soil. Entering data into databases sounds easy, but it is very time consuming and can be very difficult. With practice though, it gets a lot easier and can be done in a lot less time.
I learned how to fly a drone, take water and soil samples, enter data, collect data from wells and probes, and manage ponds to store water. I think that over this internship period, I have learned a lot, and will be able to use the skills I learned in the future. It has been a very fun learning experience for me, and I hope that I will be able to do it again next year. Thank you Ogallala Commons and Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District for letting me learn so much.
