My externship at the City of Nampa’s Public Works was an exceptional experience in my own education. Though I was able to see many ins and outs of the public sector from transportation to parks & rec, I mainly focused on Nampa’s Water Renewal Facility and its education output. This $165 million infrastructure project transforms wastewater into Class A, high-quality irrigation water.

My goals were to create usable, accessible, and relevant lessons to promote education about recycled water and the one water ideology (all water is one water). The intended outcomes were to get STEM education about the City of Nampa’s Water Renewal Facility into the secondary classroom, specifically informing students about: 1.) water’s importance, 2.) community and individual responsibility of water, and 3.) education about water’s usability.

At Public Works, my experiences were vast. I worked predominately on the water renewal facility project (specifically creating education pieces for the classroom), even attending the ribbon cutting for the Phyllis Canal outfall, joined by a number of city workers including the mayor. I also observed many departments of public works including transportation, engineering, parks and recreation, water works, and administration. In addition, I was enlightened about the intricate details of city workings that closely work together to ensure a safe and working community (even though from the outside in, it may seem very inconvenient for an individual). I was overall very impressed, not only at how everything works together, but also the level of knowledge and education of each and every individual.

Overall, I was able to create several usable pieces for the city to use in the education environment that would inform and educate students about water works, specifically The City of Nampa’s Water Renewal Facility. The education materials focus primarily on One Water and the meaning behind “making every drop count”.

I was very much impacted as an educator. The systems at the city level work so closely together that one must be working with another to maintain order and efficiency. This is important in any career, especially teaching as well. What I have learned from the externship can cross over greatly into the senior project portion of the classroom (a state requirement for graduation). It was definitely an insightful experience that I would recommend to all educators looking to invest time in students who are interested in STEM careers.

Grade Level and Subject Taught: Grades 11th-12th English