Category Archives: Former scholars

Clipping |wk.4|

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I’m busy…I’m taking an online physics II course this summer and the homework keeps a-comin’. So before I tackle that, I am writing this blog, listening to some tunes, and smelling some padthai cooking (courtesy of Lauren)!

Last week I met with about 12 other people from ODFW’s Marine Resource Program (MRP) to discuss what mapping interface would best suite our purposes. Specifically, we wanted to know which of the following three: Google Maps, Google Earth, or Oregon Marine Map. For those of you who don’t know about Oregon Marine Map and already have the Google Earth Plugin or are willing to download it, check it out: www.oregon.marinemap.org. Marine Map is an excellent resource and I am amazed at the amount of information that’s been crammed into it. However, cons follow pros. The main one being that the last time I spoke to the developers they said they had some work to do on their end with embedding videos. So, Marine Map will have to wait.

Everyone seemed really in tune with Google Maps. I was happy about this because I’m much more familiar with Maps than Earth. I’m going to compile the videos and hopefully get the framework set up so that it can be used for all of MRP’s video resources (video lander, sled, etc).

In addition to the meeting I’ve been reviewing video and clipping highlights for my Redfish Rocks MR/MRP project. I’m getting pretty familiar with the common species out there – especially the ones that are easy to identify, such as the giant plumose anemone, sea stars (basket, vermilion, etc.), blue and black rockfish, kelp greenling, pink hydrocoral, orange ball sponges, purple sea urchins, etc! I love it!

I’m surprised at how long it’s taking me to go through video. The perfectionist part of me wants that perfect clip, but in reality, what’s perfect?? There is SO much diversity out there. Every video I look at is unique.

This weekend I went SAND BOARDING with the gang! I honestly shy away from ‘extreme’ sports (yes, I consider that extreme) so I was super surprised that it was SO FUN! I recommend the smaller boards where the bindings are a little closer together – you’ll get more speed and have better maneuverability!

Sand boarding 

 

Logistics Really Are The Key

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I can’t believe another week’s gone by! Today has been a busy day and I nearly forgot about my blog post because I’ve been trying to organize a million different things! But don’t fear— my weekly update is here to inform you about what’s been up!

Last week was a pretty relaxed week, with the promise that the project was about to kick into high gear. While I have one adviser at the Hatfield Marine Science Center, the other is stationed in Tillamook and Portland.  Thus, we must communicate through e-mail and on the phone and it has been difficult to get in touch with him, as he is busy with several projects.  Since he is my link to all my interview contacts, I was starting to get worried after not hearing from him.  However, I got one contact last week.  The owner of Tillamook Bay Boathouse agreed to meet with me on Wednesday morning at his main facility in Garibaldi, OR.  I got to take a rental car (a sleek, black Mazda 3!) up the coast for a beautiful two-hour drive, but as soon as I got to the boathouse I felt a little intimidated.  It was my first interview outside of Newport and with someone I didn’t know very much about.  While I felt a little inadequate, I began speaking to him with confidence about the topic of shipping seafood to the growing Asian market and he became receptive.  I think that as soon as he noticed my interest in the topic, as well as my knowledge about

the methods and barriers of shipping crabs his confidence in my participation in this project grew.

There are many barriers to shipping seafood to China, but the greatest one I’ve seen so far is government regulation of health inspection on these exports.  As the Boathouse’s owner pointed out, having a more efficient inspection system that stations inspectors in locations that have a large number of live seafood exports would not only make it easier for producers, but also create jobs.  In a still recovering economy it is difficult to understand why seafood harvesters can’t fully take advantage of the huge demand for live seafood in Asian countries, but much of it has to do with NOAA’s inspection system.  It requires producers to pay fees that aren’t uniform because of travel expenses that must be factored into the cost of the certificates.  While I spoke with someone from Oregon Department of Agriculture about their attempts to work out a system with NOAA for providing certificates through ODA that are NOAA approved, it will likely be a long time before that will actually be organized.

I was able to tour the Boathouse, see their Dungeness crab holding containers, network to get a few more contacts for my project, and got a complimentary can of Tillamook Bay Boathouse’s Albacore tuna (perks of the job!).  Surprisingly, there aren’t many producers who do what Tillamook Bay Boathouse and Oregon Oyster Farms do in terms of shipping internationally so it’s important to get in touch with any who are.  Also, towards the end of the week I began receiving a slew of contacts from my adviser and had to begin getting in touch with them to plan site visits to the Port of Portland and Port of Seattle, as well as a couple of other locations along the coast.  I’m really starting to see this project take shape and I’m excited to get going on a big interview trip.

This weekend was relaxing and fun.  I made two attempts at crabbing — both unsuccessful!  While it’s mostly a waiting game, I think when I finally get enough for a meal I will feel undoubtedly satisfied.  Also, a few of us took

Taking important phone calls in the office!

a trip down to Florence, OR and went sand boarding at Honeyman National Park—definitely my favorite day trip of the summer.  There was even a lake that was warm enough to jump in.

Anyways, this week should be mostly organizational work.  Getting the logistics together for a multi-city trip (including Portland, Astoria, Seattle, and maybe even Vancouver B.C.) is a little nerve-wracking, especially when you’re going alone, but I’m excited to hear back from my contacts and get the remainder of my interviews squared away.  The end of the week will include a trip to Corvallis for a mid-summer check-in to see what the rest of the crew has been doing this summer, see you there!!

Sand Dunes…Guided

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Hey there,

This week was loong and exciting! I had to work 6 days in a row, all of which had something new to show me. Here are the highlights:

My 4th of July was full of fun and work. I worked in the VC, where I did the estuary tour, took care of my jelly tank, and met new wonderful people! Later on that day, friends of the commune and I steamed some mussels (which I didn’t like much, but at least I tried it)!

There were two estuary tours that were memorable this past week. The first one was for a group of 35 people. It was challenging to keep them all together, but they were loving the tour because when the time came to slurp up some shrimp, I was on FIRE! Did I mention there were 10 kids on the group?! They all wanted to slurp up some shrimp, including the kid that was as tall as the slurp gun! It was very funny and cute (he had a despicable me t-shirt)! The other estuary tour i will never forget was the most recent one I did (this past Saturday). It was for a group of 25 people that came from 17 DIFFERENT COUNTRIES! They were so into it, taking pictures everywhere and of everything, asking questions, and laughing at every lame joke I made. They made my day!

The other thing that made my week awesome was my interaction with one of the visitors. My mentor had me set up an exhibit that was based on plate tectonics, and the findings of the deep sea research. One of the exhibits was a specific gravity experiment, where one can measure the specific gravity of several rocks using a triple-beam balance and a beaker full of water. There was this kid who saw me measuring clay balls (for my Steller Sea Lion curriculum (:s)), and asked me what I was doing. I told him about the exhibit (and not my clay model curriculum), and then we spent 15 minutes doing the experiment together. When we finished, I explained to him how that related to plate tectonics, submersion zones, etc. He said he got it, and I thought it went straight over his head! Well then he walked to where his grandmother was sitting and explained everything I had taught him word for word! I felt so good about what I was doing. That was definitely one of the coolest moments in the VC for me so far.

Although the specific gravity moment was very awesome, what happened Saturday has not been topped yet (and I am not talking about the estuary tour with the international group). We fed Ursula (our resident octopus) her fish and squid in a preserves jar. Apparently we tightened it up way too much, and after an hour of trying, she released it and gave up. two sunflower sea stars (Pycnopodia) started fighting for the dang jar, with little luck opening it. This was the slowest fight I have ever seen, but it was definitely intense, and I felt like I had to do something about it. I wanted to give Ursula the food she deserved, so with the authorization of Dr. Tim (our veterinarian), I put on my orange shoulder length gloves, broke the fight apart, and fed Ursula! I could tell she was happy she ate, and I was proud of myself for saving the day!

Apart from working at the VC, I went crabbing (no luck), and sandboarding with my sea grant friends! Videos to come!

This week, I will finish designing my exhibit for the Steller Sea Lion Life History Transmitter, and prepare for the second half of my internship!

See y’all soon!

The days of Desk Work.

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ODFW Adventures: Week IV

After an adventurous but tiring weekend sandboarding with some other daring sea grant interns, I did not manage to make my next extravagant dish, but I plan on creating another food-wonder this coming week. In the mean time, I want to say a few words about one of my favorite food subjects: potatoes. You might think they originated in Ireland, or that yukon, red, yellow, white, and russet are the only varieties that exist. But there are actually over four hundred types of potatoes, and these handfuls of colorful potatoes are rooted in the Andean region of Peru. If there’s anything I miss more with my luch, it is a delicious and tasty baked peruvian potato–far more tasteful than any potatoes found in my local Fred Meyer. So if you ever get the chance to try a crAzy purple potato, my advice is do it!

This week, work at ODFW was a little bit more frustrating than I was anticipating. Now that I’m no longer bending over a back-breaking microscope, I miss the times when I counted hundreds of individual herring eggs throughout the day. Instead I have begun my days of desk work, sitting in my comfy chair with strained eyes. I spent the majority of the week working on citations, finishing a bibliography for the updated Strategy Species Table and beginning the largest bibliography of my time–an annotated bibliography for all of the climate change literature we have collected thus far. Having never done an annotated bibliography before, I am quickly learning how to summarize a fact-packed nine page scientific article into six sentences or less. I am also learning a lot about oceanographic climate change in the process, such as the negative affect of ocean acidification on the ability of shell-forming species to use CaCO3. I’ve also been doing google and library searches to find more local articles that will add to our expanding climate change library. 

Along with bibliographies, I attended many many meetings this week! Always a great break in the day, I listened to other people’s projects (Great job so far Nicole Matthias!) and learned more about the status of the updates for the Nearshore Strategy. My team is doing great, and moving at a quick pace to get these updates done before the deadline in December 2012. We have a good start on 3 of our 6 tasks, and the other three are beginning to be thrown on the table as well. It looks like I have more busy-work ahead of me; bibliographies never cease to be necessary.

All in all, things are rolling along swimmingly, and after a meeting with the gentleman that spent many years working with the herring data, I will be able to begin working with the GIS data this week! As well as finishing my bibliographies, of course! Until next week!

Getting Back into the Swing of Things

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On Wednesday last week, I came to work after four days off for the long holiday weekend.  It felt great to relax for a bit, but since everyone came back on Tuesday and were already in the swing of things, there was no time for me to

Our first bladder test - as you can tell, the bladder is flimsy in the container which makes it difficult for the water for flow in and out.

take it slow.  The day before Jody went out to test the bladders again to see if he could come up with a way that worked.  He decided to pin each bladder down under a piece of mesh.  This eliminated the bulky storage container that wanted to float away with the tide.  So my job on Wednesday was to go out into the field to collect the bladders from the test to make sure that everything ran smoothly.  When we got back to the lab we

Our next test - the bladders are much more stable when pinned down with mesh fabric.

checked the bladders to make sure that there wasn’t a leak and we analyzed our pressure data to confirm that the artificial sea water went into and out of the chambers as it should.  After evaluating our data we discovered that we were successful and that this was the method that we would be using for our main experiment.  It was great knowing that we would be able to move forward with our project on time.

As I’ve stated in earlier posts, there are so many aspects of this project that must come together perfectly.  Just as with the problems with the bladders curve balls are a many and we discovered last week that we may not be receiving our additional bladders in time to run the experiment.  Thankfully they arrived today just in time.  The rest of the short week was spent preparing for the experiment for this week.  We made new nutrient solutions for our artificial sea water, we continued working out logistics and checking to make sure we had all of our supplies, and we trained our new summer help, Stephanie, to help us with our hectic schedule over the next few weeks.

Today is the commencement of twelve grueling days of field work/ prep work/ data collection.  There will be no weekend for me – when the tides are good we go out, weekend or not!  On Monday and Tuesday of this week, I will be working with Stephanie to make artificial sea water, fill bladders, and collect supplies.  I will also be going out with Jody and Caitlin to set up bases for our experiment and make sure that all of the lab equipment is working for when we get back.  Then on Wednesday and Thursday the real work begins when we will be running the experiment that I have been working on for the past couple of weeks.  Friday will be filled with running samples and preparing for the next experiment which will take place on Saturday and Sunday.  There will be even more intense field work the next week including several nights of nighttime sampling.  I will keep you updated as to what I am doing as much as possible, but I know that I have many 10-12+ hour work days ahead of me. Eek!  But I have to say, I am loving every minute of it.  The days go by fast because I am always on the go. I am still absorbing as much new information as I can and I can definitely say that I love being out in the field.  I will let you know if that changes after these next two weeks, but I sure hope not!

Check out my personal blog to see how I spent my holiday weekend: Sara Duncan

Building the Site

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Hi all!

I hope everyone had a great weekend! This last week was my most productive week yet! Beginning over the weekend and continuing into Monday and Tuesday, I practiced some of the things I learned in Drupal Bootcamp using my Drupal training site. Although I knew I would have to transfer everything to the marine sciences site after I got my web space, I think this was still a valuable use of time because it allowed me to apply some of the things I learned so I didn’t “lose it before I used it.”

After meeting with Jenna, I learned that my marine sciences development site was finally up and running! It was time to start shifting my focus to the real site! I scheduled a meeting with Pat Kight (Sea Grant web communications), and she helped me out with a few of the Drupal stumbling blocks I was having, and finished off by giving me the URL of the new site.

I spent the rest of the week building the site (getting all menu items and tabs in place, searching for feature stories, and picking out pictures). My pride and joy so far is the feature story rotating banner that I was able to import into the site! Unfortunately this feature is not built into the system and requires importing specific HTML code. I was very excited to have achieved obtaining this module with little difficulty! I also managed to figure out how to incorporate a “Marine Science and the Coast” RSS feed as well as a highlights section into the website.

I also had the opportunity of meeting my other mentor, Dr. Brandt, this last week. He has been out of the office for much of the summer, and so I was glad to have the opportunity to update him on my progress. One thing my mentors really emphasized this week is the need for a calendar. Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of experience using calendars in Drupal, so this week I plan to work with the OSU communications team to get a calendar installed and running. I also have another meeting with Pat Kight so that I can learn a bit more about how to dress up my website so that it looks more aesthetically pleasing.

This week, aside from my meeting with Pat, I plan to focus on adding content to the website (and there is definitely a lot of content to be added). I will also be attending a meeting with the Marine Council this week and will need to present to them what I have so far. So I will be also doing a little work in preparation for that meeting.

Overall, I am very excited about the direction this website is going and it has been extremely satisfying to finally see some of my work up on the web! I also had an amazing weekend which really put the cherry on top of my week! There are three groups of REU interns living on my hall, and I had the opportunity to do an overnight at the coast with one of the groups! We managed to find a place to stay at HMSC in Newport, and we got to see several different beaches as well as some seals and tide pools. As excited as I am about my project, it was really nice to get away from the computer for a short time – very fun weekend!

Until next time,

Shealyn

Sea_Gil’s Blog Pt.4

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Another week gone by and now it’s almost time for the midsummer check-in! Last week, I finished up the bivalve attribute spreadsheet. It was very hard work and a lot of reading, but it feels good to complete something. My mentor will be checking it over to see what kind of information we gathered. I hope captured all that data correctly! I think once he has made sure all the information is good, it will be put into the PCEIS database. I’m not sure if I will actually be inputting the data in the database but I guess I’ll find out soon.

I also started a new spreadsheet at the end of last week. This one focuses on the spawning period of bivalves. Right now I am using one book called Reproduction and Development of Marine Invertebrates of the Northern Pacific Coast to get as much information about the spawning seasons of certain species. The book is a bit confusing though. It mentions species on the Pacific coast but then talks about spawning seasons of the species observed in the Atlantic coast. It is important to get information specific to the Pacific coast because even though they are the same species, there might be differences in the spawning seasons based on geographic location. Sometimes it talks about induced spawning seasons in the lab which is not very helpful because I need information about species in their natural habitats. I’m trying to figure out exactly how to capture this data and I predict I will need to speak with my mentor a lot about the problems I am encountering.

But I should address why we are collecting information about spawning seasons. On the Pacific coast there is a phenomenon called upwelling that usually occurs during the summer months. I had never heard of this being from the east coast, but my mentor told me that it is very relevant on the west coast. Upwelling occurs when the wind pushes the surface water out to sea and water from the deeper part of the ocean comes up to the coast (apparently that’s a contributing factor as to why the water is so cold here during the summer). This deeper water is thought to be more corrosive and can have negative effects on the bivalve larvae and juveniles, especially if their spawning season is during the summer.

So for this week, I will be “data mining” with the reproduction and development book. My mentor also mentioned that I would probably be helping with some more Powerpoint visuals for the database and eventual website for PCEIS.

This past weekend was fun. I went crabbing with some friends. I hadn’t been crabbing in probably ten years so it was great experiencing it again. Unfortunately we didn’t get to keep any of the crabs we caught because most of them were Dungeness females or too small. We did catch some red rock but not enough to feed ourselves, which was the plan. They were just thrown back into the ocean. One day we’ll get enough so we can have a crab dinner!

Yesterday, some Sea Grant friends and I went sandboarding. It was totally awesome! I was a bit scared at first because I had been snowboarding before and I hadn’t been very good at it. Also the dunes we boarded on were a bit intimidating but once I got the hang of it, it was great! The one downside was the trek back up the dune after you went down, but I would still highly recommend sandboarding!

Sandboarding!

End of the week thoughts from a restless woman

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Seeing as I posted only a few days ago, I do not have much to report on the work week. I have standard tasks that repeat every week: review policy documents or journal articles, write lots of emails, go to meetings, and make phone calls. This week was full of those things, but there is nothing particularly thrilling to report for a general blog audience. The main highlight was that a meeting I had changed the audience focus of the workshop that OSU will be holding for Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning this coming fall.

Today I will focus my post on briefly discussing my thoughts about my job and life phase I’m in. If you have been following my posts, I have stated that I really like the field that I am doing policy work for. Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning is a fascinating, new, exciting field that I definitely would like to continue my involvement in. While my current job has pretty predictable tasks, I’m not bored with it at all because its related to something I find engaging. I also love the freedom and independence I have to get things done. My supervisors are very trusting of my ability to get things done and I really enjoy that kind of work environment.

However, in the midst of liking many aspects of my job, I am also feeling incredibly restless. To refresh your memory, I am the only Summer Scholar that is from Oregon State University and did not have to travel to a foreign city for my internship. I just graduated from Oregon State and I have lived in Corvallis for the past 3 years. A driving factor behind my choice to become a Summer Scholar for a second time was to give me a cushion to transition from graduation to life as a post-graduate. While I am definitely enjoying my job, a part of me is also wondering if this was really a good decision for me to have made. I literally started this job two days after graduating from an extremely hectic final term of college. In the midst of starting this position, I’ve been moving around constantly and have had a lot of personal life chaos. In short, I’m exhausted and feel like I’m moving along at the level of stress I was experiencing in school. The thought of “traveling” that many graduating seniors claim to run off to sounds really appealing right now.

A larger factor in my restlessness is the discomfort in knowing that this job is not permanent. I will be joining the  ranks of the many unemployed college graduates come August 19th with a very small financial cushion to hold me over in the mean time. I’m stuck in a very tough place where I can’t really run after salaried full-time positions because I plan to go to graduate school in a year from now. Most companies/agencies don’t want to train someone that will leave shortly after investing in them. On the other hand, most “internships” for marine sciences that post-undergraduates qualify for are volunteer or give very small stipends. For someone who has college loans running after them in 5 months, taking a job where I won’t make money does not sound comforting. I have a position in Fiji lined up on January for 3 months, but it is not paid (actually, I have to pay to live there) and I’m having a large debate in my mind if its worth going.

At least, amidst all this restlessness I am satisfied with my work. To be honest, it’s really the only thing grounding me in Corvallis. I will continue to press forward, give my all to my job, and desperately search for an answer for grad school/work; however, I think deep down I will continually have this struggle between counting down the days to August 19th and finding contentment with the blessings that I have in the present.

Saving Oysters in Oregon – week 4

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fourth of July!

(sorry, no firework pictures)

Remember how special and exciting those 3 or 4 day weekends were in school?  Didn’t matter which holiday it was, it was just an excuse to stay up late watching movies and spend the whole next day reading a good novel? .. maybe that’s just me.. but anyway. THESE WEEKENDS ARE SO MUCH BETTER WHEN YOU WORK.  I just did not know how to really appreciate those long weekends (that also make the next week go that much faster).

NOT TO SAY that I hate my job.  Far from that.  I loveee what I’m doing out here.  I just need some time to re-energize so I can go at it with a renewed vigor the following week!

Back to July 4th.  It was amazing.  A weekend full of long sandy beaches, calm bays, picnics with barbecued oysters (I DID eat one.. I could learn to like them), the quintessential fireworks over the water, and a last-minute visit from my friend, Jake Bruene!

I kept him pretty busy showing him my favorite nature spots, the oysters I’ve collected, and of course my Oly ROCS.  I guess I tend to ramble, because as I was trying to explain to him my work and the problems oysters are facing, he had to slow me down to be able to digest all this new information I was throwing at him.  He was impressed by how much I had learned in a few weeks, and at that point I realized.. Yeah!  I HAVE learned a ton.  If you want to learn more about a field, there’s nothing better than jumping right in to a hands-on project with a great advisor.  And that’s exactly what OSG provided ( <– mid-internship thank you for this opportunity).  I’m also beginning to understand the term “trusted broker of information” that is in the OSG mission statement.  I would say I’m starting to become one; I just need to slow down when I explain things, apparently.

Now, about this week’s tasks!

remember the Dredge Islands?

They contained all those oyster shells from the subtidal environment, and I collected those shells to be able to compare shell sizes with those in the intertidal environment.  Well, early this week, I was able to measure living oysters in the intertidal for the comparison… and guess what I found?  There was a similar bell-curve type of distribution for both intertidal and subtidal oysters, but on the average, the subtidal shells were a good 20mm larger than the intertidal ones.  The shells for this comparison were randomly selected to include the whole spectrum of sizes, so the next project will include comparing all the largest oyster shells to see if there is a significant difference in their maximum sizes.

boats and pH.

In Coos Bay and South Slough, my advisor has a good number of dataloggers that measure temperature, conductivity, salinity, dissolved oxygen, and pH every 15 minutes.  They have been recorded for at least a decade now, meaning that they have a significant amount of data to study the smallest changes that have been going on in these waters.  For good measure though, we wanted to compare the pH measurements of the field dataloggers to those of a more precise lab instrument.

So I took Jake with me on a nice, chilly and wet boat ride to collect some water samples near the dataloggers!  I’ve been trying to show him a good time in Coos Bay, but of course, that day had to be the coldest, foggiest day to be out on the water.  I had a good time though.  I was able to use field instruments, record data, and collect samples all by myself!  I felt very independent.  Well.. I don’t have my boating license yet so Adam was driving the boat for me, BUT I was able to drive the state truck the next day to different beaches to collect more water samples.  So all in all, this was a great week of gaining independence.

As for the pH comparison, it didn’t go so well.  It seems as though the lab instrument and the field instrument were not calibrated or standardized the same way, because I was getting slightly different readings.  No need to worry though, I’ll just try again next week!

And those Oly ROCS…

We did end up making more of those, and they’re definitely closer to what they need to be for implementation.  (I also recruited Jake to help make his first Oly ROC).  I think we’ll be putting them in the bay soon, so I’ll have those pictures for you when that happens!

Test! Test! Test!

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What another interesting week!  This past week was spent preparing for the main experiment that we are going to be conducting this summer.  Our main focus this week was testing the new bladders for our artificial sea water. We had much more faith in these bladders than we should have.  The cubitainers that we have been using have some rigid support to them and can be easily fit into a plastic crate.  The bladders on the other hand have very little support and the water sloshes around as we are trying to carry them in their flimsy storage containers.  The bladders still may be our best option though, when the channel that we are putting them in is not far lower than the chambers were we are conducting the experiment.  As explained in my last blog, there must be a height difference between the reservoir of water and the base of the chamber in order for the water to flow in and out.  There are some places that are rather level where we need a flatter container to make sure that this happens.

So, the majority of the week was spent testing three different bladders that we had in the lab and out in the field.  After our lab experiments we determined that two of the three bladders would work best because they were more stable so we set out the next day to test them in the field.  Once we got to our site which is called Winant Marsh, up the estuary about half way, we realized some additional problems with the bladders.  Because they weren’t stable the nozzle that was connected to a hose that connected the chamber with the bladder kept bending in weird ways under the pressure from the hose that we kept getting an air lock.  After some messy alterations we were somewhat satisfied with the way the experiment was set up so we left to wait out the high tide.

In the afternoon, we came back to take down the equipment and analyze our data back in the lab.  It quickly became apparent that the water pressure from the tide did not sufficiently force the artificial sea water out of the bladder and in to the chamber.  The next day, we also discovered that there was a leak in one of our bladders that caused it to gain a sufficient amount of water from the high tide.  To make things worse, the bladder that worked the best was not being made any more so we’re not able to get as many as we need!

Because of our test, this next week will be interesting.  Jodi has some ideas as to how to make the bladders work better and we can hopefully find out how we got a leak in our bladder.  Currently, I am working on a logistical outline for one of the experiments that is coming up and I will be reviewing that with my mentor early this week.  But man! It is way more complicated than I would think! I usually don’t know what to expect in the coming days, but as time goes by I’m getting more and more used to the way things work around here.  I can’t wait to see what I learn next!

I hope you all had a great holiday weekend!

Check out my personal blog: Sara Duncan