megsmedes-ESIIL-Stars-Webpage
Meghan Smedes
Meghan’s Mega Cool Site: an ESIIL Stars Website
Exploring the Chesapeake Bay shoreline (and yes, I do watch Mandalorian!). Discovering a bamboo forest in Maui with my family.
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Meghan Smedes on Linkedin
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Email Meghan at msmedesatmsudenver.edu
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GISmedes
Education
- I attend Metropolitan State University of Denver where I am persuing a Certificate of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a Geography Major.
- I previously graduated from Colorado State University with a Bachelor of Science in Natural Resource Recreation and Tourism, with a concentration in Parks and Protected Areas Management.
Biography
Nature is for me a place of comfort, adventure, wonder, and experiementation. As a child, I was always connected to the outdoors whether my yard, a hiking trail, or at summer camp. So, it is no wonder that I persued a degree in Natural Resources in college. For 20 years, I have been an informal educator, from using Authority of the Resource as a Park Ranger to facilitating nature-play for preschoolers as a Tinkergarten leader. For seven years of my career, I worked for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, teaching STEAM programs to schools throughout the Denver-Metro area.
It was toward the end of this job that I chose to stay at home with my two kids at the time. Now I have three, ages 13, 10, and 8. Over the years, I encouraged them to play and play outside like I did! In 2020, during the COVID19 shutdowns, I got to use my education experience as their teacher at home. We stepped out of public school with its online/screen-based learning, to experience the world in a tangible way. One of the highlights of the year was hatching and raising backyard chickens. What a blast! We used 2 of our hens to incubate and hatch 11 chicks. It was marvelous to watch. I was ambivilant to homeschool for a year, but the experience turned out to be one of the best decisions. My family creatively came together to get through a difficult time, building resilience in the process.
Now, everyone is back to school and they are older and more independent, so it is my turn to pursue learning and the next part of my career path. I have always found Geographic Information Systems fascinating and it is a valued skill in many natural resource / environmental jobs. So, I joined Metro to persue my GIS Certificate. I envision applying the ESIIL Stars Internship and my certificate to a job or a Master’s degree where I can monitor natural resources and interpret the data as a GIS / python wizard!
Hatching chicks during the pandemic.
Excited for ESIIL Stars
I am exited to learn python and other coding language as I know it is applicable to GIS and other programs. I have already learned so much just by getting to build this website through github!
I want to gain experience with the processes of data collection and analysis. I am mulling around some hypotheses to try and think of things we could study for the summer project. I love plants, so I am thinking of how they could be incorporated. I am glad to be here and I’m looking forward to working with all of you!