Intern Program involves telephone poles, tennis balls and teamwork. Challenges included donning a harness and helmet to climb a 32 foot pole, stand atop it and then jump off, trying to catch a trapeze. In other tests, challengers had to pass tennis balls to a team member standing on others' shoulders, clamber through rope obstacles without touching the rope, and try to maneuver two six-member teams to opposite ends of a log without touching the ground. The purpose of the challenge program was not only to help the interns get to know each other better, but to prepare them for their work at the Illinois EPA by giving them tasks that required teamwork before they could be finished.
Interns pass each other through a web of ropes without touching the ropes.
Six-man teams try to switch postions on a log without anyone touching the ground. GEC intern Bradley Defoe contributed this article on the GEC internship program. The photos are by Kristin Van Aken, an intern in the Agency's GPSI master's degree program.