Category: Students

Quinn Riordan knew she’d have to land scholarships in order to pay for school. The applied ecology and environmental science major went for the Obama-Chesky Voyager Scholarship for Public Service from the Obama Foundation—and won!

In addition to receiving up to $25,000 per year in last-dollar financial aid for her junior and senior years, covering Riordan’s remaining tuition after other federal, state or institutional aid is applied, the scholarship also included a $10,000 stipend and free Airbnb housing to fund a six-week Summer Voyage between her junior and senior year. For her Voyage, Riordan chose to focus on sustainable agriculture and access to agricultural knowledge.

Riordan lived and traveled in Ecuador this summer as an intern for EkoRural, a non-governmental organization that works alongside communities working to increase their capacity to improve food production, income generation, and community health. Her goals included learning about highland agriculture from Ecuadorian farmers, learning from communities about their important connection to agriculture, and learning conversational Spanish.

During her first week, Riordan lived on the farm of an EkoRural director, where she began to adjust to both the altitude changes and life in Ecuador. She spent time in the EkoRural office translating English soil science experiment instructions into Spanish. “These documents are used by EkoRural to test soils sent in from farmers in the Quito area, or can assist farmers when testing their own soil health,” Riordan said. 

Riordan moved from the farm to downtown Quito after the first week, where she took Spanish classes from LatinoSchools and learned about the history of Ecuador. 

When her Spanish classes were completed, it was time to move again, back to the Cumbaya neighborhood that’s closer to the EkoRural Quito office. Riordan spent five weeks organizing soil samples and performing base experiments on the soils to learn about the health and quality of soils from volcanic regions. She processed 45 different samples from three different regions near Quito. She completed four experiments for each soil sample. All experiments required completely dried soils. The first experiment looked at the soil color and could help determine organic material. The second looked at soil aggregates and how water soluble they were. The third experiment examined oxygen content in the soil, and the fourth experiment focused on active microbes in the samples. 

During this time, Riordan had the opportunity to attend team meetings with employees from all of the different offices, a useful way to meet the team and learn about the work they were doing for rural farmers in the highland regions. 

She went to an activity day with team members to help youth from the Salcedo area brainstorm ideas for a project to document Ecuadorian history and landmarks for tourism. She attended the International Potato Center conference on the International Day of Potatoes. There she met scientists and talked to farmers about the ways they’re improving soil quality in the highlands and marketing highland potato varieties for large-scale shopping. 

Riordan also spent a day in the field with a graduate student from Michigan Tech to help him take comparative measurements in a peatland to investigate if wetland improvement projects were working properly. 

On the weekends, Riordan spent her time exploring different regions in Ecuador like Baños del Santa, Mindo, and Otavalo. Learning about the landscape and history of Ecuador through tours and museums helped her understand more about the culture. 

At the end of her time in Ecuador, Riordan spent two weeks in the field with EkoRural coworkers in Riobamba and Salcedo. She helped facilitate interviews with indigenous farmers about their practices with farming in the highlands. She learned about farming in the Andes largely from women farmers and their families.

Most of the activities facilitated by EkoRural were about healthy eating, and talking to farmers about how much of their crops they consume instead of selling. They also helped farmers complete projects on their farms to improve soil quality without chemicals or pesticides. One of the most important parts of food culture in Ecuador is having organic, chemical-free food. 

“Overall, what I learned the most after this summer was about the strength and loyalty of rural farming communities in the Andes,” said Riordan. “They have a strong sense of sharing, kindness, and trust in each other. They also have a lot of trust in the EkoRural employees and their ideas. They allowed us to help where we could. One thing that definitely helped build trust was allowing the farmers to come to their own conclusions and lead their learning. This definitely helped the farmers trust EkoRural more. We also always came with food or gifts and made sure to respect their space.” 

Riordan said she grew personally as well as professionally through the experience. “I learned a lot about asking for help. I struggled at the beginning of my trip with figuring out how much I could lean on my coworkers and my family at home for moral support,” she said. “I learned that living in one place and creating a routine to get to know the community is my preference. I liked getting to know my Airbnb host and her family, and having a daily routine at the office.” 

You can get more details about the scholarship Riordan won and scholarship tips that could help you land money for school (and maybe travel experiences!) on Stories From Husky Nation.

About the College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science

Michigan Tech’s College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science brings students, faculty, and researchers together to measure, map, model, analyze, and deploy solutions. The College offers six bachelor of science degrees and graduate degrees in Applied Ecology, Forest Ecology and Management, Forest Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology, and Forest Science.

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