Last week, TESI hosted an end of the year celebration to recognize all the incredible work produced by the institute’s environmental communicators and graduate assistants. Students got to eat a hearty meal, celebrate everything they have accomplished while at TESI, and play some games.

Program Coordinator Sadie Mills put together a Florida-themed trivia game for the students with questions on sturgeon, Florida’s national parks, and more. Several of the students commented that their work for TESI’s Know Your Florida Instagram helped them answer a few of the questions. Congrats to environmental communicator Aleida Wells for being this year’s Earth systems trivia champion!

After the trivia game was over, everyone played a mobile icebreaker activity that was like Telephone but with drawings. First, everyone writes a drawing prompt, and the prompts are each randomly assigned to one person, who then draws the prompt in 30 seconds. Their drawing is passed to the next person, who must interpret it and write that down. This artistic game of Telephone continues until all the prompts have been used.

This game of Telephone created some unexpected and hilarious results, like a prompt that started off as bigfoot surfing and ended up as a palm tree surfing a giant wave.

  • Group shot of TESI interns playing trivia game on their phone while sitting at a table together.
  • Wide shot of a computer screen and table. Computer screen has the banner that says Congrats TESI Students!
  • Group shot of the TESI team holding flowers.

Goodbyes and New Beginnings

The celebration had a bittersweet ending, as some of the communicators are graduating and moving on to their new jobs and graduate programs. These wonderfully talented undergraduate students include:

  • Genna Nordling, B.S. Marine Sciences
  • Elise Plunk, B.S. Journalism
  • Augustus Hoff, B.S. Journalism
  • Isabel Yianilos, B.S. Environmental Science
  • Patricia Escobar Torres, B.S. Environmental Science

Nordling will pursue a Master of Professional Science in marine and atmospheric sciences at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science. Plunk will be taking a position at the Louisiana Illuminator as a Report for America corps member. Hoff and Yianilos will continue working part time at TESI this summer while they explore career and graduate school opportunities. Escobar will remain at UF to pursue a master’s in interdisciplinary ecology.

Also graduating this semester is environmental communicator and coordinator of TESI’s Environmental Leaders Fellowship, Lexi Bolger. Bolger is earning a master’s degree in agricultural education and communication and will pursue a a doctoral degree in interdisciplinary ecology at UF starting this fall.

Finally Isabelle Gain, a graduate assistant for TESI, is graduating with a master’s degree in health education and behavior. Gain plans to use her degree and experiences leading the UF TESI Environmental Leaders Network to pursue a career in environmental interpretation.

TESI wouldn’t be possible without the great work of its students, and we can’t wait to see what great things they’ll do next!