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Internship Experience

During the challenges of 2020 and COVID 19, my internship was challenging. Finally in the fall, I began visiting a few farms in Ashe County. I also had the opportunity to visit the Fraser Fir Seed Production Area at Grayson Highlands State Park in Mouth of Wilson, VA. In this orchard, there are 600 Fraser Fir trees in a fenced area managed by growers in the local area. This includes growers from Ashe and Alleghany counties. I learned that the Fraser Fir is native only to the highest elevations of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. It makes a perfect Christmas tree due to its beauty and needle retention.
As my internship moved forward, I visited farms that specialized in nursery, landscaping, and retail markets. The evergreen trees were in different stages of growth and production.
Eventually, I was invited to visit farms in the eastern part of NC where I was surprised by the beauty of the Leyland Spruce and Green Giant varieties of Christmas trees. I told one farmer that as a mountain girl I would always be partial to the Fraser Fir, but he could almost sway me to the Leyland Spruce. They were gorgeous!
Fraser Firs are still the most popular Christmas tree in NC with a representation of 99% of all species grown in NC.

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Summer Institute

What a wonderful opportunity to meet new Kenan Fellows!  Even though flexibility was required, and we missed the opportunities to be in person and make even more connections.  The professional development experiences were informative and eye-opening.  I have many followup articles to read and digest to increase my knowledge of biases in education.  In my classroom, I look forward to using the many apps we used – such as GooseChase, iNaturalist, and Slack.  Many of these will be handy especially when using online lessons or remote learning opportunities. The students will be more engaged with these new experiences than with strictly pencil/paper or other more formative assessments.

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My Journey as a Kenan Fellow

I was so excited to be selected as a Kenan Fellow and researched the Fellowship from the time of the application to the beginning of the summer institute.  I considered myself a leader in my school, but I wanted to be a leader that shared throughout my district, region, and state.  There are so many challenges in teaching these days that support from others is a key to success.  I don’t know everything, but I’ll share what I know if you will share what you know, and we will learn more together.

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”– Helen Keller