Have you been to the bosque?
During my summer internship, I created an online zine to as a teaching aid for children learning about the natural environment.
Internship: Bosque Ecosystem Monitoring Program
Project: In the summer of 2014, I was hired as a youth and artist intern at the Bosque Ecosystem Monitoring Program (BEMP) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. My main role in this internship was largely self-designed: creating a bilingual zine (mini-magazine) about the environment to be used as an educational tool for kids. I would spend hours a week wandering into the local bosque for inspiration, finding things to draw and paint. At the end of the summer, I had the opportunity to use this zine as I facilitated workshops for kids about bugs and self-publishing. Every students made their own mini-zine and had the opportunity to draw insects from our specimen collection. My zine Have You Been to the Bosque? is now used as a free tool for teachers and is used as supplementary material to the Albuquerque Public Schools system.
This internship allowed me to explore my interests in art, environment, and community organizing while also utilizing skills I gained as a Spanish major at Mount Holyoke. This experience has brought me the closest to what I would like to do after college. Zines are a great medium for educational tools and bringing community together, because anyone can self-publish and everyone has ideas to share.