2012 Annual Report 1a.Objectives (from AD-416): The objective of this agreement is to facilitate the Friends of the National Arboretum (FONA) in supporting the projects at the U.S. National Arboretum (USNA). FONA will provide funds to ARS to hire interns for the USNA-FONA Internship Program. 1b.Approach (from AD-416): Interns will perform standardized duties in support of numerous projects in all organizational units within the U.S. National Arboretum, including Floral and Nursery Plants Research, Gardens Unit and Education and Visitor Services. These duties will permit selected individuals to gain hands-on horticultural and public garden experience through the Arboretum’s plant collections, greenhouses, research laboratories, and public programs in either the Washington, D.C., or Beltsville, Maryland, locations. Examples include assisting with research in the laboratory and in the field; performing garden maintenance chores, including pest management and propagation; entering plant records data; and assisting with educational and event functions such as marketing and program planning and implementation. 3.Progress Report: The Friends of the National Arboretum provided new funds in FY12 for internships in the Research, Education, and Gardens Units. Six-month and three-month summer interns served in positions in the Introduction Garden, Dogwood Collection, Azalea Collection, Conifer Collection, Research Unit, and the Education Unit. New this year was the addition of an eight-week spring internship in the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum. In addition to work in the collections, interns completed special projects that included revising a virtual tour for children, creating and updating plant identification labels, contributing to current research on box huckleberry, and working on a group project to collect photographs of specific plants and locations for inclusion in the Arboretum Botanical Explorer (ABE) and image database.