Pulling it all together and making sense of things proves one of the hardest tasks for Julie:

“I can’t believe this summer is about over.  I only have 3 days left at Hatfield.  Those 3 days will be filled with frantic work getting the rest of my exhibit proposal pulled together as well as my Sea Grant portfolio and presentation done for Friday.  I go home Saturday morning and I haven’t even figured out when I’m going to pack.  Eek.

But back to the point at hand.  Doing social science has been such a fun experience.  I really loved talking to people to get their feedback and opinions on Climate Change and the exhibit.  I’m so excited for this exhibit.  I want it to be fantastic and I’ve been working very hard on it.  I am stoked to visit next summer to see it in the flesh!

One thing that I find really challenging about doing this kind of research though, is pulling together the data and putting it into a readable format for something like my End of Summer Final Presentation on Friday!  The big survey I did, for instance, was 16 questions and the data collected is very qualitative and doesn’t fit neatly into a table on a power point slide.  So I have to determine which things to pull out to show and exactly how to do it.  I feel confident that I’ll get it down, it’s just going to perhaps rob me of some sleep the next couple days.

Today (Tuesday) I finally got to do something that I should’ve done long ago.  Mark took me into the “spy room” as some call it and showed me all the awesome video footage being recorded in the visitor center.  It’s really incredible!  I was able to download a few videos of myself interpreting at the touch tank which Mark suggested would be a good addition to my portfolio.  Now I feel like a real member of the Free Choice Learning crew.”

This summer has given me a wealth of experiences that will really benefit my future…I can’t wait to see what that future holds.