George River Internship
We're back from the 2021 George River Internship!
What is the George River Internship (GRI)? During the GRI, high School students spend seven days on the George river learning about the area’s natural resources and collecting habitat and biological data. The internship teaches students skills that will help them secure fisheries related jobs, often near their homes.
And there's more: Besides getting to spend a week in one of the most gorgeous places on Earth, the GRI interns:
- have their travel to and from the project site and room and board fully paid for
- the interns receive a $500 stipend after successfully completing the program
- interns enrolled in High School earn 0.5 credits in River Systems Ecology - a semester's worth of science credit - through the Kuspuk School District
- help build a database to monitor the health of one of the Kuskokwim's tributaries
The GRI is organized by the Kuspuk School District in partnership with the Native Village of Napaimute. Erich Kuball is a an organizing wiz and he took care of the organization, logistics and recruitment with support from Alaska Excel, Donlin Gold and TKC.
The 2021 GRI: During the 2021 GRI, thirteen students (two NVG members!) and eight adults, including NVG's environmental coordinator, spent a week on the George River collecting data from five sites.
The students were in their waders from morning until evening as they:
- collected water quality data using a YSI meter - just like NVG does for our water quality monitoring
- set up nets to count the number of fish in an area
- identified the species of the collected fish and collected asl (age, sex, length) data for each one
- evaluated the depth and stream velocity
- collected and identified insects and bugs (there were a lot of screams during this part)
- helped out at the George River weir for an afternoon
In the evenings, under Christa Wilson's (Alaska Excel) direction, students learned to analyze the data they had corrected, even doing some calculus under the rain! Dan Gillikin (Napaimute's Environmental Coordinator) discussed the basis of fisheries management and wildlife biology, and Barbara Johnson (Native Village of Georgetown) engaged the students in a discussion on adaptation planning based off of the report Adapting to Climate Change in the Middle Kuskokwim. You can see the notes for the discussion here. The Native Village of Napaimute will use the data collected by the students to monitor the health of the George and combine it with data collected during previous GRIs.
Here are our pictures from the 2021 GRI.
TL;DR: The George River Internship is an excellent program during which high school students learn fisheries management skills and contribute to the monitoring of the health of aquatic systems in the Kuskokwim region.
***Know a high school student?*** Encourage them to apply for KSD's programs like the GRI and the MSE. And also to check out Alaska Excel classes. Offerings range from high school classes to the GRI to flight school. These classes are an excellent opportunity and are free. 
