Illinois Native Plant Society seeking students for paid internship opportunity

Students interested in native plants and their ecosystems are encouraged to play for the 2023 Blooming Botanist Grant.

Junior and senior high school students and freshman and sophomore college students are eligible to apply, said Andy Neill, vice president of the Kankakee Torrent Chapter of the Illinois Native Plant Society and biology professor at Joliet Junior College.

Application deadline is April 22. Awardee will be notified by April 30.

Neill spearheaded the grants and chairs the committee that evaluates applicants for the paid internship. Neill said the internship is “an attempt to get the next generation of young people involved in learning about native plants in the field.”

Few of his JJC biology students express interest in botany, also known as plant science, Neill said. The internship give students “ground level” experience in that field, he said.

Neill said this internship experience will look favorable on resumes for students going into undergraduate coursework and/or first jobs in plant science.

Career opportunities for plant scientists include managing land for agencies on the county, state and federal level that do land restoration work, Neill said.

“These particular professions need people with field experience to be able to identify local plants – and then understand what those plants indicate about the health and well-being of the natural area that the are managing,” Neill said. “I tell students that the land is like a person’s body. It can be considered a patient. And the patient is either well or sick and needs mending.”

Neill said the internship also will benefit students who want to volunteer in natural areas.

“But we still need a core group of professionals trained to do this work to lead the volunteer group who may not know much of anything but are still willing to help,” Neill said.

Neill said botany programs are no longer popular and many colleges and universities have eliminated it.

“It’s really sad,” Neill said.

A ‘living, functional landscape’ is necessary in order to sustain life

Neill said it’s important for people to understand the role plant scientists play in their well being.

“All of our food comes directly from plants,” Neill said. “If we’re not eating them, we’re feeding them into our livestock. We have to know how to maintain our current crop plants and change them – improve them – so that they are more productive and remain productive in a changing environment, especially, of course, with global warming and drought and flooding. So we need students that understand the plant as a living organism.”

In fact, a “living, functional landscape” is necessary in order to sustain life, Neill said.

“We need the pollinators to pollinate the wild plants and also our agricultural crops, from sunflowers to avocado to pumpkins and watermelons,” Neill said. “And these pollinators need wild place to forage and live. So there is this interconnectedness of the diversity and wellbeing of the plant world.”

Janine Catchpole underscored Neill’s points. She and her husband, Floyd Catchpole, are both active members of the Illinois Native Plant Society.

Floyd Catchpole, a land management program coordinator for the Forest Preserve District of Will County, helped found the Kankakee Torrent branch. Janine Catchpole said she is active at the state level. The two met through a native plant sale, she said.

[ To help ‘restore a really intact ecosystem’ in Will County ]

Janine Catchpole of Joliet said most of Illinois is down to less than 1/10th of 1% of native ground. And that native ground must support the lives, such as insects and birds, that feed on those plants.

“A lot of native plants can have very specified insects that feed on them, pollinate them,” Janine Catchpole said. “And when they disappear, there’s just not enough area to support them or the area between protected areas is so far away.”

For instance, the rusty patched bumble bee is a federally protected a federally protected endangered species, according to the state of Illinois website.

It can be very easy for populations to crash,” Janine Catchpole said.

The community can do its part by adding native plants to their gardens.

“They’re easy to grow because they are adapted to the area,” said Janine Catchpole, who grows native plants at home.

She said a few native plants even “pop up” in her vegetable garden.

“That’s OK,” she said. “They attract good pollinators and better insects to hunt the pests.”

To apply for the 2023 Blooming Botanist Grant and for more information on the Illinois Native Plant Society, visit illinoisplants.org.