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On May 31, 34 college students representing 23 colleges and universities
convened at the IEPA's Springfield headquarters for the start of
the 10th year of the Governor's Environmental Corps. The next day
they went to the Eagle Creek Resort at Lake Shelbyville and scaled
walls, crawled through obstacles and jumped off utility poles in
a team-building process that gave new meaning to the term "hands-on."
Then they got down to nine weeks of work in the Agency's headquarters,
seven regional offices and one laboratory.
The training program, to promote interest in environment-oriented
careers, is underwritten by 14 companies based in Illinois or with
Illinois operations.
Assigned to work with individual mentors, the interns have the
chance to take part in the Agency's day-to-day activities. Every
other week, they go as a group on field trips to relevant sites
-- water and wastewater treatment plants, a landfill, a tire shredding
operation- for an up-close look at the kinds of entities subject
to Agency regulation.
The program culminated on Aug. 2 with a lunch at the executive
mansion in Springfield, to which sponsors, mentors and the interns
were invited. No one was required to jump off anything at that event.
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