Hello everyone!

I’m wrapping up my Fall 2025 season with Environment for the Americas as a Monarch Research and Education Intern at Joint Base San Antonio – Camp Bullis. It’s hard to believe how quickly this season has passed and how much I have learned since the start. This internship has allowed me to strengthen my plant identification skills, gain field experience, and contribute to monarch and pollinator conservation efforts in Texas. As the name senescence suggest I am leaving this internship a more mature scientist – grateful for the experience and eager for the next season.

Final Project – Herbarium

For my final project, I completed a herbarium of native plants from JBSA – Camp Bullis, including 31 specimens collected between September 1^st and November 14, 2025. Each week I collected new samples, carefully pressing them in old books (The Hunger Game series make surprisingly great plant presses) with a 20-pound weight stacked on top for even pressure. I would leave the stack on my windowsill in the sun, usually for about a week or until the plants were flattened and dry. Once dried, I placed each sample on printer paper using a mixture of 80% Elmer’s glue and 20% water, applying it gently with a paintbrush for petals and more evenly for the sturdier stems. Every specimen received a proper label including: the herbarium owner, specimen number, scientific name (italicized or underlined), common name, family, locality, habitat, elevation, date, and collector’s name.

A table of contents is an essential part of a herbarium that introduces the collection and makes it quicker to locate specimens. Additionally, each scientific name and symbol should be verified the USDA’s plant database for correct identification (https://plants.usda.gov/). For every sample collected (especially flowering), it’s essential to include both a leaf and flower if present, as both are important for precise identification. Creating this herbarium as my final project was a practical way to apply my plant identification skills beyond the classroom and better understand the seasons at JBSA – Camp Bullis.

Last Words

As my internship comes to a close, I’m incredibly grateful for all the opportunities I’ve experienced during my time with EFTA. A major highlight was touring the San Marcos Aquatic Research Center (SMARC), where I met their team and saw the endangered Texas Blind Salamander (Eurycea rathbuni). It was definitely a check off my bucket–list!

Another unforgettable moment was joining the EFTA Monarch Team at the Selah Bamberger Ranch Preserve for a monarch tagging event, including teams from Monarch Joint Venture, Fort Hood, Fort Bliss, Dyess Airforce Base, and JBSA – Camp Bullis. Together we tagged around 20 monarchs with Monarch Watch sticker tags and a handful with CTT BluMorpho radio tags – a tiny solar powered transmitters that weigh about 0.06 grams. I assisted in the tagging process by applying the eyelash glue and carefully placing the BluMorpho tag on the back of the thorax of the monarch. I noticed the fine hairs on their backs that I hadn’t paid attention to before, and applying the tag was trickier than expected. Watching their migration patterns towards Mexico on the Project Monarch app has been such a cool experience as a scientist.

This internship has deepened my appreciation for all pollinator species and how important they are to our environment. I want to thank David Thomasson (USFWS Biologist) and Brian Cooper (EFTA Intern partner) for being incredible mentors and field partners, and Dejeanne May, our project manager, for her leadership and ongoing support. I’m leaving this internship with new skills, great experiences, and motivation to continue conservation studies.