Internship Components & Eligibility

Orientation

A 4-day overnight orientation kicks off the internship program with all interns and staff present. This is a time to get to know one another and learn more about what the next ten weeks will look like. PIPES foundational program elements are introduced to the cohort and we all participate in team-building exercises.

An important part of Orientation is the Intern-Mentor Hoʻolauna Session which is a designated time for interns to meet their mentors face-to-face and put together a working plan for their internship. This ideally allows for the intern to hit the ground running on the following Monday for their first day on the job.

Internship

The internship itself is 40-hour work weeks of the intern reporting to their job/project site and carrying out the tasks given by the mentor(s). Several projects in the past have had interns spending their work week camping in remote areas, collecting data at the ocean and in the mountains, analyzing data in an office or laboratory, and conducting educational outreach with kids to professionals in the field. Depending on the physical location of the job site, interns are sometimes required to drive far distances and PIPES does our best to accomodate this if the intern does not have access to a reliable car.

Māhuahua

We meet for capacity building workshops six times out of the ten-week internship, usually on a Wednesday or Monday from 5pm - 7pm. These māhuahua are intended for PIPES to expound on the components of the Moʻo ʻĀina Framework as well as for the cohort to come together for a meal and fellowship.

Huakaʻi

On four Fridays of the internship, interns will not report to their work site but rather hop in a PIPES van for a day-long huakaʻi to a special place on Hawaiʻi Island. Wherever we traverse that day, we learn about the space from the hosts and do some hanahana (service learning) to give back to the area and people for hosting us. These huakaʻi are great opportunities not only for interns and staff to be together as a cohort but also to form and deepen connections to place and community.

HCC

Each summer, the 3-day Hawaiʻi Conservation Conference is held during PIPES programming and we use it as a good opportunity for our interns and staff to attend and learn more about conservation efforts in Hawaiʻi and beyond. For those three days, interns and staff will be in Honolulu to attend the conference in-person. While still recieving regular 40-hour work week pay, PIPES covers flights and boarding for all interns as well. An important part of attending this conference is always our PIPES Alumni Networking Session, where current and past interns as well as staff get to gather over lunch and talk-story about their experiences and what sort of work they are doing now.

Symposium & Reflection Camp

The culminating event for our interns is the Student Symposium where they present their work and experiences in an ArcGIS StoryMaps format to an online and in-person audience. Attendees are family, friends, mentors, community partners, PIPES alumni and more. It is an integral part of our program that beyond creating a space for interns to express their reflections, also offers an opportunity to have their work seen widely often by individuals/organizations that potentially would like to support the intern beyond their undergraduate studies.
The PIPES Reflection Camp is an overnight stay with the cohort and staff where we all are able to relfect on our time together and individually for the last time as it closes out our programming. PIPES staff typically uses some of the time to disseminate a survey and gain feedback from interns on how to improve our program for future interns. The rest of the time is for relaxing with each other.