96 - High School Students and College Students and Graduate Students Oh My!: How to Create an Internship Program that Spans Different Educational Levels.

Since 2005, Anastasia Mosquito Control District (AMCD) has provided multiple internships to all educational levels.  The internship program was created to enhance AMCD’s program through education and applied research, encourage interest in mosquito control from both scientific and non-scientific students, mentor interns in the scientific method, laboratory standards, and public health, as well as bring new technologies and methods to the field of mosquito control.  AMCD has partnered with over 18 Universities and Colleges across the US, the Entomological Society of America’s Public Health Entomology for All program, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC Southeastern Center for Vector-Borne Diseases at the University of Florida Emerging Pathogens Institute, and the Academies of St. Johns County.  In total we have trained 99 students: 32 graduate students, 44 undergraduate students, and 23 high school students.  This talk will present an overview of how AMCD’s internship programs work and how a mosquito control program can start an internship training program of their own.