Intern Insights
2026 AAUFRC Intern Experience
By Teagan Flaherty
UME Student Intern
This summer was quite the adventure here in Anne Arundel County as well as my travels across the state at various events. One of the biggest highlights of my summer was our donations to the Anne Arundel County Food Bank. All of the produce was collected from the Anne Arundel County Urban Farming Research Clinic throughout the summer and included peaches, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, and jalapeños. As of my last day in the office, we had a total count of 1,788 pounds of produce donated this summer.
In addition to the produce donated, we were happy to once again collaborate with Pherm Brewery to provide them with all of our blackberries this season, as well as some jalapeños, cucumbers, and hops that will be used in their IPAs.
Beyond all that was donated, it is important to note all of the hands-on skills I learned while working on the farm with Dave this summer. I completed a variety of tasks such as thinning peach trees, weeding sunflowers, and planting pumpkins by hand. Due to this, I now feel extremely confident in my agricultural knowledge and that I could discuss these topics with farmers in a professional setting.
More importantly, Dave also gave me ample opportunity to expand on my entomology knowledge, as that is a major passion of mine. I was not only able to keep records of our moth traps as part of a project for Dr. Kelly Hamby but also scout for pests in the field to notify Dave if he needed to spray insecticides. From this, I was also able to note what beneficial insects were on the farm to develop data on the type of insect communities living on urban farms. The data in total was minimal but found a wide variety of insect orders and an abundance of pollinators such as butterflies, beetles, and bees.
View Teagan's Intern Exit Seminar Slides
2025 AAUFRC Intern Experience
By Mike Ribblett
UME Student Intern
This summer I had the privilege to work with and learn from Dave Myers and Brian Hufker at Anne Arundel Extension Urban Farming Research Clinic (AAUFRC). We focused on growing a multitude of crops that have high yields. Out of our plot plan, the most bountiful produce included tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkins, melons, green beans, and peppers. Out of everything we grew this summer, and after we conducted our research, we donated over 1000lbs to the Anne Arundel Foodbank.
In addition to working in the AAUFRC, I was given the opportunity to collaborate with our local brewery, the Pherm Brewery Company, to create a local Maryland grown IPA. The AAUFRC donated 52 lbs of blackberries, 12 lbs of Hops, and 36 lbs of jalapeno peppers to the Pherm Brewing Company, which were combined with locally grown and malted barley to create a 100% Maryland homage beer named, “Let My Inspiration Phlow”. It is still currently on tap and in cans at the Pherm Brewing Company.
Out of all the knowledge this summer the one portion I am most excited to build upon is my pesticide usage and integrated pest management (IPM) experience. Dave was able to show me how to mix, clean, and very prescriptively spray pesticides to protect our plants on the farm. I will be taking this knowledge with me wherever I go, as part of my future in agriculture. I am eternally grateful for everything Dave and Brian shared with me this summer at the AAUFRC.
2024 AAUFRC Intern Experience
By Abi Anderson
UME Student Intern
Hello! I'm Abi Anderson and I had the amazing opportunity this summer to work as an intern at the Anne Arundel County Extension office through the University of Maryland Workforce Development Internship Program.
During my 10 week internship I worked under Dave Myers and his associates at the Anne Arundel County Urban Farming Research Clinic. This past Thursday myself and Dave attended an Internship Closing Ceremony where I presented a slideshow recapping my activities to my fellow interns, and the University of Maryland and Extension staff.
I'd like to thank Dave Myers so much for being my mentor during this time. I have such an appreciation for Agriculture and Ag careers now after this experience, and that is because of your dedication to the AAUFRC.
I'd also like to thank Brian Hufker for your dedication to the urban farm project.
Finally, I'd like to thank all of the UMD staff and faculty that put a tremendous amount of time and planning into this Internship program. I had a great summer and I hope to take everything I learned here with me throughout the rest of my college career, future jobs, and my life!
2023 AAUFRC Intern Experience
By Heather Knauss
UME Student Intern
Hello! My name is Heather Knauss, one of nine student interns in the University of Maryland Extension Program. As we have closed in on the end of the student internships, would love to share what I have learned and what I have done. Dave had me helping out on the Urban farm this summer with weeding, maintenance and harvesting. Everything I did out on the farm taught me something I didn’t know before. Every month I have written an update for our website’s 2023 progress page. I started a Blog and Instagram for the farm. The moth traps that we have on site have also been managed by me. There have been several events that we have gone to or hosted that I have spoken at to present our moth data, and I have come up with informative flyers for some of those events as well.
As for 4-H, I have helped work on lessons, create slides for them, and I actually helped to teach one of them! I am happy to let everyone know that I will still continue to work here until the end of December! I have done and learned so much this summer and I plan to continue doing so! If you don’t know what extension work is I urge you to take a moment and research it, as it is a vast career with many avenues.
2022 AAUFRC Intern Experience
MaKayla Kret
UME Student Intern