Another of our interns, Julie Nance, gives us a run-down of her first week at HMSC.

We had a very busy first week at Hatfield!  It has been full of some incredible trainings.  Our first adventure was tromping around in the mud with Dr. John Chapman.  We collected mud shrimp for his research on the mud shrimp’s isopod parasite and were able to see this critter first-hand.  We then had a series of trainings on the estuary tour including a power point presentation, and going on the estuary walk with 3 different presenters so we could see different styles and create our own.  This weekend we began presenting the tours ourselves with a seasoned presenter accompanying us.

We also had the pleasure of going to the Cobblestone beach tide pools at Yaquina Head, and saw a variety of invertebrates and some fish.  We have also been taken through a tour of all the animals at the visitor center by the aquarists, and Dr. Tim Miller-Morgan taught us all about the salt water system.  Amidst all this excellent scientific information, we also learned about visitor center closing procedures, money counting, and the Ocean Quest presentation which we will begin giving to the public next week.

Brian, Nick and Diana will start doing the visitor center programming this week- specifically the estuary walk and helping out at the visitor center.  This week will also be filled with a lot of research in order to begin our projects.  If any of us appear to be missing, there’s a good chance we can be found at the library with our noses buried in the resources available to get the ball rolling on our wave and climate change projects.