Matt Andrews

High School Apprentice, Pawpaw Patrol

“If I can be outside, I’m going to be outside.”

Matthew Andrews, rising senior at Parkway North High School joins Tyson as one of six TERAs (Tyson Environmental Research Apprentices) and one of five members of the Pawpaw Patrol. This is exactly what he was built for.

“Believe it or not, I was not always this way. But I became a huge dinosaur nerd my freshman year of high school. I thought to myself, ‘If I want to become a paleontologist, I will have to go outside and look for fossils.’ I stumbled upon SIFT [Shaw Institute for Field Training – TERA’s precursor program] knowing it would force me to get outdoors. Surprise! I loved it. Even more than dinosaurs. And now I’m here at Tyson!”

What changed?

“I realized I loved plants and I loved walking through a forest. A lot of times people walk through a forest and see trees being the same as a telephone pole, or any inanimate object. But I walk through them and feel they’re all alive, and they change.

The pawpaw team lets me ask questions that are never weird or irrelevant. We are all fascinated by every little plant and want to learn everything about them. So, if one person finds a weird plant or mushroom, we all hover around instantly and say, ‘Wow! That is weird!’ And it is so much fun.”